The Sound Of Waves
In The Sound of Waves we meet Shelly a girl who, finding herself in a class taught by the evil Mrs Black, begins to retreat more and more into a watery world where she is turning into a fish. This allegorical tale has for its inspiration the performer’s own experience of losing her hearing, and then eventually receiving a Cochlear implant and coming back into the hearing world again.
Jodie Harris is the solo performer, transforming herself through subtle physical changes from character to character, such as Shelly, the murderous Mrs Black, the doctor and a spaced out seahorse.
The device of having a single performer switch back and forth between characters during conversations became at times overlong, and some dialogue seemed to drag on without adding to the story.
An evocative sound track by Jethro Woodward which under-pinned portions of the play added another texture to the performance. Unfortunately the voice over portions of the audio were at times difficult to comprehend with the ancient angler fish voice being so distorted that the dialogue between he and Shelly was incomprehensible. This seemed to be a pivotal point in the narrative so it was unfortunate it could not be understood.
The setting of this play, in the warehouse space of fortyfivedownstairs, looked deceptively simple, made up of a series of wooden panels above a central acting area and naked incandescent bulbs hanging at head height upstage. This was magically transformed by the clever lighting of Bluebottle and Frog Peck. The space became a classroom, doctor’s office and more spectacularly the underwater world to which Shelly increasingly retreats, and ultimately the dark abyss.
This is a very personal performance by Jodie Harris, and the season of this show will also become a part of her ongoing story. As a performance there were a few structural and technical issues, but, as an insight into the personal journey and the determination of this performer, it is an inspiration.
Shirley Jensen
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