Earthshatteringly good

Earthquakes in London is a play that could so easily go wrong. With (brief) nudity, temporal shifts (the narrative jumps around between 1928 and 2525) and philosophical passages on the doomed nature of man due to his treatment of the earth, it is tailor made to fulfill every “it’s all symbolic, innit” cliché of student drama.

It is a great credit to Dramsoc’s production of Mike Bartlett’s 2010 play that it avoids that. The original production premiered at the National Theatre, and the story is built around three sisters, daughters of renowned Climate scientist Robert Crannock, who is now a climate change doom monger after spending his younger days as an advocate for airline companies and their expansion. The daughters, Sarah, a Lib Dem cabinet minister in the Coalition Government, Freya, a heavily pregnant house wife, and Jasmine, a hedonistic student who’s been kicked out of university are estranged from him. The play uses their family dynamics to cover such wide ranging issues as the relationship between government, big business and science, the wisdom of bringing children into a seemingly doomed world, and our role as humans in destroying the environment with a hefty dose of family melodrama thrown in for good measure.

The original production won plaudits for it’s stage design and, though lacking the resources of the National Theatre, Dramsoc comes up with an innovative contraption of their own, the most prominent feature of which is a ramped runway that ends up half way down the Union Concert Hall, seemingly thrusting the audience into the action. The staging also allows for some ‘3D’ stage arrangements with action taking place in another plane to what regular theatregoers will be used to.

The production is technically complex and engaging, and comes across as a multimedia mashup, with atmospheric lighting that effectively leads you through what to follow on stage, impressive sound design that surrounds you and doesn’t stop throughout the show and video sequences, a particular stand out being an ultrasound of Freya’s unborn child, complementing the action on stage.

The action on stage is slightly mental, with so much going on it’s a credit to director James Perry that you can still follow the story. Very often, different scenes overlap and at one point I counted four taking place at the same time. You could very easily watch something else besides the currently lit scene and the cast do an amazing job of staying in character even when the spotlight is not on them. The large supporting cast do well playing a variety of roles, helped by costumes that make it clear when an actor has moved on and is now ‘someone else’. A particularly striking Stepford Wives sequence should be watched out for.

Of the principal characters, Giulia Zerbini is a revealing fit as a Whiny Teenage boy, who has a crucial role to play in the plot; Roxanne Middleton performs a brilliant and brave burlesque routine as the hedonistic Jasmine, and most people at Imperial will see something prescient in the idealistic young PhD student played by Chris Witham, who has his scientific principles tested and ends up as a jaded, embittered, cynical and emotionally distant retired Professor played by Kristen Farebrother.

An immersive, thought provoking and at times worrying production, there is nevertheless a feeling that some of the cast don’t quite get the rhythms and emphases of the dialogue, missing a lot of the humour and depth originally intended in the script. It’s like the actors don’t understand the motivations and thought processes of characters many years older than they are. Which leads to some moments, sometimes whole scenes, falling flat and seeming one noted, making the overriding message of the play one of impending doom. This the production communicates effectively, especially when focusing on the character of Freya (Grace Surman), who gradually gets more freaked out about having a baby in a world that her father has predicted is doomed to destruction, but every now and then, you do wish for the actors to deliver something light to alleviate proceedings.

A highly recommended evening out at the theatre, and a show that you can pay a compliment without just seeming polite. There is plenty to enjoy and marvel at and also a lot you might not get after seeing the play once, but if you are too cash strapped/busy partying/stuck in the library to go see it more than once, just tell yourself “It’s all symbolic innit?” For the rest of you, see it with friends, you are likely going to want to dissect it afterwards.

Dramsoc’s Earthquakes in London has two more performances on Friday the 30th November and Saturday 1st December. Tickets are £6 on the door.