This dark and disturbing drama charts the descent of an ordinary couple into violence and horror, as their morbid obsessions overtake them.Rating
Excellent
I have always been interested in a certain type of dark story that straddles the line between horror and literary fiction, and whose aim is to disturb the reader as much as possible. Chuck Palahniuk’s infamous short story, Guts, is a strong example of this, as is the writing of Mariana Enriquez.
Done badly, these stories can be purely shocking for the sake of shock, but lacking substance. I have sat through too many pieces from edgy creative writing students, whose only goal is to upset or grab attention. The skill with this type of story is to engross the audience and then escalate the tension until it becomes almost unbearable. Then go a little bit further. This is what Vermin at Park Theatre does.
The plot follows a couple, Rachel (Sally Pafett) and Billy (Benny Ainsworth), across their whirlwind romance and their life together, every moment of which is touched by the morbid. They meet while observing a suicide on a trainline outside London, both morbidly fascinated. Their life living together reveals their obsessions. When they discover rats living in their house Billy is determined to annihilate them, while Rachel believes that they are the reincarnation of her lost child.
This narrative unfolds through captivating dialogue and minimal staging, with only two performers and two chairs, which focuses the audience’s attention on the story and the rising tension. The two cast members deliver strong performances, which make these two ordinary people feel specific enough to be real people, with unusual quirks that expand to become obsessions and then destructive. The writing from Ainsworth also shines, tying all the elements of the production together.
As a lover of unsettling stories, Vermin really appeals. The sense of unreality rises throughout, from the macabre origins of their relationship to their descent into violent madness and then into outright horror. There is a strong sense of the layers of reality unpeeling. Normal life recedes and a distorted reality consumes the characters. Effective pacing is essential for this type of story, as the audience is taken from the mundane world into the world of horror.
There are plenty of grotesque elements to shock and enthral; from torture to animal cruelty, to what it is like to die slowly from being fed rat poison. These details are added slowly, taking the audience neatly from mundane reality to another world filled with pain and suffering.
A crucial scene towards the end, which details a still birth and the grief this causes, provides essential character development, showing the pain that pushes the characters down the road to violent ruin, using trauma from our world to anchor the characters. This also recasts the horror elements as a metaphor on the too-common tragedy of losing a child.
The hard-hitting finale ends the narrative at the most horrific point. Vermin opens a door to a place of horror and violence, and gives us a brief glimpse into the darkness on the other side. As a lover of disturbing fiction, this horrifyingplay was totally captivating.
Written by: Benny Ainsworth
Directed by: Michael Parker
Lighting design by: Alex Lower
Sound design by: Ben Sorab
Vermin plays at Park Theatre until Saturday 20 September.
