A spirited narrative that feels too much like a first draft.Summary
Rating
OK
The UK’s benefits system is less than ideal, a fact borne out by countless works depicting the Kafka-esque nightmare of the modern welfare state. Seeking to offer a unique take on this difficult world, Mute Messiah has a lot of heart but unfortunately hits a lot of hurdles as well.
The story follows two sisters, Emma (Nicky Russo) and Jess Bottomley (Belin Cekmece), as the former does her best to balance both working as her sister’s carer and her own personal struggles, with the Department for Work and Pensions eager to throw a spanner in the works at every turn. Emma’s carer status for Jess is essential: mute, but not deaf, Jess is fully aware of the world around her but can only communicate through sign language, regularly relying on Emma to interpret for her.
This is the show’s unique selling point, and the source of many of its difficulties. In an admirable effort to be fully accessible to all audiences, the show has two separate visual displays: the spoken text of the play subtitled at stage-left and the text of Jess’ sign language projected onto the back wall.
Both displays had serious problems on the night. The speech subtitles often skipped back and forth as if they were being manually operated out of sync with the show and ultimately became a disruptive rather than supportive element of the play, especially when downright incorrect subtitles appeared. Most notably, a supporting character played by Sion Symonds mentioned they were from Bermuda while the screen flashed ‘Jamaica’, only to correct itself on subsequent subtitles. A puzzling oversight.
The sign language projection overhead fared little better. About 10-20% of the end of each sentence was cut off for whatever reason, leaving many sentences malformed or unfinished. Additionally, choosing this method of display means it’s impossible to focus on Cekmece‘s performance as our eyes are drawn to the words over her head. Finally, and most egregiously of all, when the play concluded on a statement by Jess the text projected above her was both out of sync and – quite crucially – only displayed her final line for a fraction of a second, making it unreadable and silencing a character who had finally found her voice.
Overall, the technical presentation of the show is lacking and, as the story relies so heavily on it, the tale told is undermined. The current approach simply doesn’t work, and either needs to be tightened up or an alternate method of delivery found.
Outside of all this, there is much to admire in the play. Russo as Emma is a strong performer, delivering each line with conviction and selling the stakes of the story at each point (a story that quite often has too much going on, and could do with some paring back of plot threads). Opposite her, Jodie Garnish is a bundle of energy and fun every time she slips into a new character, from case worker to nosy neighbour. With them the play is at its strongest, and by focusing on these strengths and addressing the patchy technical elements the show can only get better.
Written by Paz Koloman Kaiba
Directed by Paz Koloman Kaiba & Isik Kaya (Safyan Iqbal – Creative Associate)
Designed by BXU & Melis Ictener
Mute Messiah plays at Bridge House Theatre until Friday 2 May.
