If you needed to map the contours of the patriarchy, a container ship can be a fairly good place to do it. That's the place playwright Chloë Moss locations Corrina, a feminine officer who joins an all-male crew on an ocean crossing from Felixstowe to Singapore.
She meets the softly-softly captain whose genial manner is a entrance for sustaining male authority. Then comes the outdated flame who appears good sufficient till he crosses the road between sensible jokes and gaslighting. She sees hope in a single respectable bloke, a Filipino deckhand, solely to search out that financial exploitation makes his loyalty provisional. And, throughout her, are under-the-breath grumbles from males who would sooner preserve the sexes aside.
Within the lead position, a powerful Laura Elsworthy offers with this self-supporting male world in one of the best ways she will be able to: with ft rooted and fingers in pockets, she is all brash humour and fast retorts. Not giving an inch, she performs the lads at their very own recreation. She is susceptible, sure, however ferocious with it.
There's materials right here for a claustrophobic TV sequence alongside the traces of the BBC submarine drama Vigil, however on this Headlong/Everyman co-production, it appears a lot much less suited to the stage. On Moi Tran’s imposing panelled set, generally dwarfing the actors in its ocean-going enormity, the script floats prosaically across the onboard characters, establishing relationships however making no wider remark nor imaginative leap.
Moss recognises the potential to lift questions on not solely the sexes, but additionally colonialism, capitalism and energy, the ship’s two-tier crew reflecting the imbalance and injustice of the worldwide economic system. But these themes stay largely latent as she dives right into a no-means-no battle between Corrina and Mike Noble’s slippery Will, her former good friend. The ship could possibly be a microcosm of society, but the play stays extra specific than common.
A operating motif involving karaoke doesn't change that. Neither do the extravagant dream sequences, with their stormy video, flashing lights and sleep-walking crew members, compensate for the shortage of theatricality. Director Holly Race Roughan attracts forth sturdy performances, however Corrina, Corrina drifts in shallow waters.
Corrina, Corrina is on the Everyman, Liverpool, till 4 June.
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