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There are strong elements to this show, but at the moment, it is just a little inconsistent to be considered a finished work.Summary
Rating
Ok
It is 1987. Three young strangers find themselves in the same downtrodden arcade (picture Brighton Pier). They don’t know or want to know each other.
All of a sudden they discover they are locked in, trapped and unable to find an exit. Director Luke Sookdeo and the cast do a good job of showing the unease and the growing tension within the group as they navigate this dilemma and each other. They come to the conclusion that the way out is to play a game on an arcade machine, but it turns out this will instead force them to relive and face up to shame that they feel over parts of their lives.
Arcadia 87 throws its themes out quite wildly, covering poverty, sex work, sexuality, the HIV crisis and gay panic of the 80s, and a slightly out of left field look at sororities in the US. Everything feels undeveloped here, with too little time and focus spent on each story and relationship, whilst not managing to fully engage the audience.
There is plenty of comedy mined with Mystic Maggie, a fortune-telling arcade machine based on Margaret Thatcher. Comments about Tory Government policies in the 1980s leading to people on the streets or unable to feed their electricity meter are sadly just as relevant today as in 1987. There is also fine comedy showing the American viewpoint of Margaret Thatcher being considerably more positive than that of the locals, and a prescient question as to why people vote the Tories back in.
Some inconsistencies in the script are frustrating, Mikey (Sookdeo) is looking for a lost friend but after just an initial mention of this it is discarded. Why is Britney (Bee Nickerson) constantly running off to the bathroom? This comes back as a plot point but then goes nowhere. Mikey’s vision of his shame isn’t seen by the group like Meg (Molly Farquhar) and Britney’s; the audience sees him relive it but then he also explains it to the others. The dangling threads start to add up without taking the story further.
During the initial setup, as the arcade machine is whirling around the room, we see a fourth character, Martin (Shane Robert Saul). Spoiler alert – as it is later to be a surprise that he is hiding from the storm in the bathroom it might have been worth leaving him out of the setup. Saul does a good job of making the others even more uncomfortable, raising their suspicions, and dropping a hint of malevolence before leading us to the climax.
There is strong movement and physical theatre, great prop work (the Thatcher papier maché is very effective) and the sound work is excellent, not just in the use of 80’s music but in the distorted voiceover and the snippets of recordings of Thatcher. The rest feels solid but suggests unreached potential. The strong energy, enthusiasm and core concept are all here, and slightly more focus and tightening could turn this into a potent piece.
Written by: Luke Sookdeo
Directed by: Luke Sookdeo
Produced by: Molly Farquhar
Arcadia 87 played as part of VAULT Festival 2023 and has completed its current run.
