Kate’s Score: 3.5 cthulhus
Pomona is a limbo land; an island of concrete and wilderness surrounded by the waters of the Bridgewater Canal and connected by a single roadway to the main city of Manchester. This is a city the British Army targets for recruits because of the many, many disenfranchised young people living there. Pomona is also the eponymous title of Alistair McDowell’s disruptive play which deals with varying success, the notions of human trafficking and evil.
Nobody lives on Pomona which is owned by a disinterested Zeppo (Dorje Swallow), but vans transport “goods” into it whilst Charlie (Kevin Batliwala) and Moe (James Smithers) guard the gates. Charlie likes to RPG and teaches an enigmatic Keaton (Jane Angharad) how to enact RPG in real space and time. Ollie (Amanda McGregor) wanders in, looking for her lost twin sister. She meets sex worker Fay (Lauren Richardson) and nasty brothel owner Gale (Monica Sayers) and suddenly this is a world of snuff films, organ harvesting and baby making for profit – a vicious and dangerous world for women.
It is a highly ambitious play, littered with metaphors, time-twists, graphic images and contrasting banal and intriguing wordplays. It is a highly uncomfortable play in its diabolical subject. It is a genre defying, post-apocalyptic, sci-fi vision of our now and our future. Director Anthony Skuse’s production taps into all this. And he is mostly ably assisted by a haunting lighting design (Veronique Benett) and sinister soundscape (Nate Edmondson).
But even the excellence of direction, performance and design cannot solve the problems born of the play’s ambition. The exposition is just far too long. About fifty minutes in and the audience around me were fidgeting until suddenly, there we were, captured by the play and stilled by the unfolding events and emotion. A conundrum then: an exposition which simply takes far too long to inveigle our interest followed by a riveting, engrossing play. One could litter McDowell’s work with adjectives – sinister, compelling, nightmarish, an excoriation of our moral selves. It is worth the journey – but once you are forty-five minutes in and wondering “how much longer?”, comfort yourself that something stunning is ten minutes away.
Stick it out. And then email the writer to edit the exposition a bit.
Kate Stratford, Theatre Now
24 Jan – 8 Feb 2020
Venue: Kings Cross Theatre
Theatre Company: Secret House
Duration: Approx. 90 Mins
Standard $42
Concession $35
Preview: $30
Tue – Sat 7:30pm
Sun 5pm
Previews 24,25,26 & 28th
By Alistair McDowall
Ollie’s sister is missing. Searching in desperation, Ollie finds that all roads lead to Pomona – an abandoned concrete island at the heart of the city. Here at the centre of everything, journeys end and nightmares begin. A sinister and surreal thriller exploring our denial about the ugly truths that lurk beneath the surface.
What’s in a Chicken McNugget? “You gotta pick and choose what you give a shit about… Knowledge is responsibility.”
Directed by Anthony Skuse
Produced by Jane Angharad & James Smithers
Lighting Design Veronique Bennett
Photography Clare Hawley
