Breathing Corpses
Some theatre companies have had really bad luck with COVID-19: then there’s Eye Contact Theatre. In 2020 they were 24 hours away from bump-in at the Kings Cross Theatre when – bingo! - the whole thing was called off. And now, two years and a new cast later, just when everything is looking good, two of their lead actors have come down with the wretched disease, leaving fill-ins Di Adams and Gerard Carroll to boldly read from scripts on opening night. Thanks, COVID!
A ‘breathing corpse’, according to Sophocles, is someone who has lost all hope and happiness, and there are several candidates in this line-up. There’s Amy (Emma Wright), a lanky young hotel cleaner who discovers only the second corpse of her short career. Jim (Gerard Carroll) depressingly finds a rotting body in a storage unit and finds it impossible to forget. Kate (Nisrine Amine) has come upon a girl with a slit throat while walking her boyfriend’s dog, and she’s not happy either.
The events are brought together by director Jess Davis on a neat little set (Kate Beere) and with great lighting (Sophie Parker) and crystal-clear sound effects (Sam Cheng). The play is like a mad jigsaw puzzle crossed with a black comedy – timelines are deliberately blurred in the three apparently unconnected plot threads.
The beautifully played out scene with Kate and her lover/boyfriend (Zelman Cressy-Gladwin) and their loud, ever-barking dog Cameron, is terrific. As is the final scene where Amy, the angel-of-death chambermaid, gets her share of the good luck that she usually misses out on. Jet black comedy is the order of the day.
The clever structure of events is mind-altering: the play appears to be running backwards at times. No doubt this is splendid theatre, helped by exceptional support from the company’s technical staff.
Let’s hope things get better for Eye Contact Theatre and they can shrug off the curse of COVID.
Frank Hatherley
Photographer: Becky Matthews
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