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Two strangers (Joseph Wycoff and Max Easey) guide a fishing journey below a veteran sailor (Suzy Sampson).
Out on the water, the trio’s plans are scuppered by a sequence of escalating risks…
While ready for assist, they discover a younger lady (Meg Sara Andrews) floating on the water – one other survivor of the ocean.
Can this weary foursome survive the weather? Or one another?
A thriller generally is a troublesome style to mount on stage. It is a style primarily based on immersion, which is smart for literature, films or radio. To various levels, the suspension of disbelief is constructed into the medium. Shark in a Boat advantages from the claustrophobia of its setting – whereas completely different when it comes to plot and motion the present is actually a locked room thriller like Wait Until Dark.
The main set is the boat, represented by items of cell surroundings (wheel, benches on items of decking) which the performing troupe transfer in a semicircle throughout each scene change – it’s an efficient technique, displaying each the trio’s passage and the passage of time.
While the press launch references Jaws and Dead Calm, Shark in a Boat, in each premise and tone, appears like a theatrical homage to the journey novels of authors like Desmond Bagley or Alistair Maclean – a small group of unusual individuals pressured collectively to battle the weather and extra human-instigated threats.
What is most refreshing about Shark in a Boat is it is a real style piece. There is not any sense of parody or satire to the introduction of acquainted archetypes and plot units.
The solid are on the identical web page, taking part in the piece completely straight. There is humour to the piece, however it comes from the character dynamics. It by no means feels just like the actors are winking on the viewers.
As a play, Shark in a Boat is made up of two distinct halves.
The first half is an environment friendly little rigidity machine, as a sequence of seemingly random incidents put our characters in jeopardy. This first half appears to be a contest of differing views of the world: a spot of order or one in every of infinite variables, of big methods during which particular person human beings are powerless to do something.
There is one thing unusually affecting in regards to the first half, not when it comes to the variables thrown at our protagonists, however how they react and start to disclose their true selves.
There is just not quite a lot of plot to the primary half – the characters have an opportunity to breathe.
The second half delivers a twist, a revelation designed to reorient our view of the story and the characters. After a primary half that pits its characters towards forces of nature a perverse sense of order is launched, and the present turns into one thing extra prosaic.
The second half appears like a sudden infusion of plot, and the stress begins to bleed away. What beforehand felt like a sequence of escalating risks, the results of one error main to a different, now turns into a distinct type of thriller – a extra generic and contrived one.
It is an pleasant present, however Shark in a Boat feels prefer it simply misses on its promise.
Shark in a Boat performs at Pitt Street Theatre twenty seventh February – eighth of March, earlier than taking part in the Rose Theatre Eleventh-14th of March.