Review: TOMORROW CREEPS, The Vaults

Golem! takes part in Vault Festival with Tomorrow Creeps, a new play that features sixteen works of Shakespeare. A mashup of quotes and circumstances that, in the eerie and humid atmosphere of The Vaults, is perplexing and not always coherent, but promising nonetheless.

The story revolves around The Hollow Hero (Conor O'Kane), who, after his family's been killed, asks for help to The Fallen Tyrant (David Fairs). The latter, who has been in confinement, is a treacherous usurper who is known to meddle with witchcraft. As the Hero asks the Tyrant to give him his daughter back, The Spectral Queen (Zena Carswell) makes her presence known.

Written by Fairs himself, the concept is exceptionally interesting: nipping bits from Shakespearean plays to create a new piece works well on paper, but becomes slightly hard to follow as staged by the company. The traverse stage, where the action sometimes happens way beyond the seats doesn't help at all, and maybe it's not the best way to display the events.

Director Anna Marsland does her best to take advantage of the space and the smokey clamminess of the setting makes for a great ambience to the ghostly drama. Her direction is sharp and well executed, matched by tight and subtle performances.

Fairs is dazzling as he jumps from madness, to despair, to lust with ease and expertise, taming his adversary with wit and the occasional trick. Carswell is mysterious (maybe even too mysterious) as his suicidal Queen, her role isn't too clear from start to end, but her performance is compelling, even though too forced at times. O'Kane's grief-ridden performance complements Fairs', and the two men going at each other keeps the play alive.

The presence of Macbeth, Lear, Hamlet, Falstaff et al is sadly at the expense of the plot itself, which blurs and takes a back seat, leaving the audience wondering too much what exactly is going on. The concept is exciting, but definitely in need of tweaking so that the baffling parts disappear and spookiness takes over completely. Two stars for now, but it's bound for more.

Tomorrow Creeps runs at Vault Festival until 28 January.

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