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Queer mental health trauma brought to life in a stunning performanceSummary
Rating
Excellent
On a simple carpeted set in the Bush Theatre’s Studio space, a young man is having a terrible time. Malachi (Tienne Simon) is in the grip of a nightmare: he’s drowning, deep under the waves and powerless to propel himself to the surface and the blessed relief of air…
Finally awake, Malachi tells us this nightmare has been visiting him nightly for 30-plus days, and so vivid is Simon’s evocation of it that you wouldn’t wish it on your worst enemy. But why is Malachi being tortured like this? And how can he break the awful cycle of terror?
Malachi has recently arrived at university to study English Literature. He’s daunted by the prospect of having to find a new friendship circle for the first time since high school, where he had quickly formed a close bond with a boy called Femi. A bond so close, indeed, that as they became adolescents they explored their homosexuality together.
Malachi is hoping that uni will be a rewarding new chapter for him, maybe with some romance as well as learning. Forcing himself to make introductions, he finds an immediate peer group, but things don’t click into place until at the Societies Fair he is drawn to the Black Queer group, and specifically its leader, Kojo, with whom Malachi is instantly smitten. Things progress rapidly from there, and at a party that same night Malachi and Kojo share amazing kisses.
But all is not rosy. Malachi’s nightmares continue, and his anxiety begins to manifest in paranoid hallucinations threatening his waking existence as strange things take place in his student lodgings and more publicly in the university library. Is Malachi’s tantalising proximity to happiness with Kojo going to be scuppered by the brittle state of his mental health?
Writer/director Kwame Owuso’s exceptionally fine one-man play finds in Simon the perfect protagonist. Emotionally engaging, urgent and convincing, Simon has a hugely compelling presence, bringing Malachi’s complicated psyche to life with utter clarity. It’s a remarkable performance: assured, immediate, and physically fluent to the point of athleticism.
I wish the scenes of a white middle-class student saying the “wrong” things in seminars were written with the same sophistication as the rest of the play – they feel a bit clumsy in comparison – but that’s really the only complaint I have about this vibrant, truthful and valuable show.
The production is supported by superb lighting and sound design, the sinister elements of which Simon reacts to with heart-stopping alarm. There’s also some gorgeously disturbing music.
A script as focussed and detailed as this only blooms in the hands of exactly the right actor, and the partnership of Owuso and Simon is pure gold. What they achieve together is a startling portrait of human frailty that radiates authenticity and compassion at the same time as it unsparingly dramatises the depths of despair to which our own neuroses can drag us. The speech about queer shame will ring resoundingly within the soul of anyone who has experienced it, and hopefully strike a chime of empathy in others.
Written and directed by: Kwame Owusu
Produced by: Bush Theatre in association with WoLab
Dreaming and Drowning plays at Bush Theatre until 5 January 2024. Further information and bookings can be found here.
