Written for Culture Wars
Seven conspicuously middle-class squatters have invaded a grand townhouse in a well-to-do neighbourhood. They talk about bursting bubbles and making statements living off the city’s castoffs. More often they bicker; each desperate to prove themselves committed to the cause. Only they can’t even agree on its nature: radical activism or calm subversion. Is it about holistic sustainability, egalitarian meritocracy or simply settling grudges? Besides, distractions abound; there’s fun to be had, pills to be popped and bodies to be explored.
Lara Stavrinou’s play is almost onto something. I say almost because Stavrinou doesn’t quite balance between two opposing objects of derision. On the one hand, you see traces of Stavrinou the idealist, rallying against the system imposed on the young, frustrated with the hand she’s been dealt. On the other, there’s Stavrinou the conservative, unwilling to overlook the inconsistencies and hypocrisies of her privileged occupants and offering them up as fools. Individually both are worthwhile subjects; together they cancel each other out.
Technically, however, we get Stavrinou the naïf. Derelict offers glimpses of promise, but little understanding of dramatic technique. The pace is fast-tracked, such that arguments cut to the chase without building and most of the dialogue reveals before it conceals. She spells every link in the narrative chain and seemingly lives by the rule that drama necessarily equals conflict. With more comic bite, bottled tension and minute attention, however, Derelict could be something special.
As it is the flaws go unnoticed in a Lotte Englishby’s over-faithful production that would benefit from a controlled explosion. However, she demonstrates a keen eye for detail, coaxing a handful of pinpoint touches within individual performance, notably Charlotte Brand’s level-headed, worthy Est and EJ Martin’s puppyish Viv.
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