Justine Brooks (@JustineFBrooks) reviews Wrecked by Urban Sprawl …
“It’s the idea of being trapped rather than the reality of it that does your head in.”
When I was a kid, one of my favourite books was The Swiss Family Robinson. In it, a family shipwrecked on an island survives by being wonderfully inventive, building a treehouse, a series of mechanical labour saving devices and even a library. The story (heavily based on Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe) is an elegy to family values, self sufficiency, cooperation and general wholesomeness. Let’s face it, the shipwreck makes a great genre – The Tempest (with Sir Ian McKellan as Prospero at WYP in 1999 was one of my all time favourites), Lord of the Flies, Tom Hanks’ breathtaking performance in Cast Away, di Caprio’s lacklustre one in The Beach, The Life of Pi are all classic examples.
Most shipwreck tales start (obviously) with the traumatic experience of the actual shipwreck, and then develop themes of the wonderful capacity of human beings to survive, generally with a journey of self discovery thrown in for good measure. There’s usually a bit of mystery along the way (who else is here on the island? what will we eat?) perhaps a little conflict (or a lot if you’re talking Lord of the Flies) and then some sort of rescue and redemption at the end.
Which is where Wrecked, a play about a group of people shipwrecked on an island, breaks the mold. It’s the lack of redemption at the end – and I possibly shouldn’t be mentioning this before I discuss the rest of the play – that really hits home with a really rather good twist in the tale that is probably more redolent of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest than Swiss Family Robinson.
Wrecked is the tale of two groups of people shipwrecked on an island. The Easties and the Westies, led by Oscar (Nigel Walker) and Louise (Lucy Meredith) respectively. Oscar contends with the situation by dreaming of escape and building a raft while aggressively cajoling his comedy sidekicks John and Paul (Jonathan Coggan and Ben Greenaway) into finding bits of wood with which he can complete his bark.
Louise, on the other hand, deals with the situation by nurturing. She’s a Mother Earth figure with a sadsecret, and she copes with her lot by cooking, which means she is as obsessed with wood as Oscar. However, unlike Oscar with his flight reflex, for Louise wood is fuel and she cooks up great pots of delicious food to keep her fellow islanders fed. (Note here the exploration of themes of self sufficiency as seen in The Swiss Family Robinson).
There’s a healthy dose of humour AND swearing in Wrecked, both elements that liven the whole thing up – after all, there are few things worse than community theatre that takes itself too seriously. More light relief is offered through a series of well choreographed dance numbers, to classic tracks from Wham! and The Beach Boys, which added a touch of the bizarre to the proceedings as the real drama of the play steps up, giving a nice interplay of human dynamics and a real sense of the tragedy and loss of human existence. What’s more, they’ve even made a place for existential angst: The Thing In The Water, a message in a bottle, a message from the outside world that fascinates and terrifies the islanders in equal measure.
Wrecked has been written as a collaborative piece, a challenging but surely rewarding way to work, and is ultimately a success. Clearly a process of hard work and dedication by a group of committed people, homeless theatre company Urban Sprawl brings together drama professionals and the homeless to create something that’s attractive to an audience and features some convincing performances.
Wrecked was performed as part of Love Arts Leeds Festival at 7Arts in Chapel Allerton on 19th Oct.
ON November 30th, Urban Sprawl presents Confumbled. 7pm at Headingley Heart, Leeds.