All at sea: Theatre Workshop Coulsdon’s cast for the dramatic new production, Orca, which opens at the Coulsdon Community Centre next week
Theatre Workshop Coulsdon’s latest production, Orca, opens next weekend, and if you’ve followed TWC down the years, you’ll know this ambitious group like to ring the changes from their usual, lighthearted and irreverent fare, with the occasional more serious piece.
Plays that deliver a real emotional punch – a quality that Orca has in spades.
Midsummer. On a wind-whipped Atlantic island, the village prepares to enact its hallowed annual ritual.
They must choose a new “Daughter” to sail with the boats and bless the fishing grounds. To keep them safe from the roaming pods of orcas for another year.
Fan hopes with all her heart to be chosen. But her older sister Maggie says she must never, never go with the boats. Because Maggie swears that something happened to her out there, but no one will admit it. No one will talk about it. And no one, not even Fan, believes her.
It’s then that Gretchen is pulled from the ocean, half-drowned…
Orca is a play with a resonant message, but the otherworldly feel of a folk tale.
It’s a story of love, loyalty and family, and the resilience of a young woman willing to stand against an entire community in the face of terrifying odds. To face down a heart of darkness.
You’ll feel the sea spray on your face and taste salt on the air in this compelling play.
Winner of the 2016 Papatango New Writing Prize, Matt Grinter’s Orca is a dark, intense and thrilling piece of theatre – an unflinching insight into what makes a community tolerate the unthinkable.
Jaws meets the Wicker Man, according to The Grauniad.
On stage at Coulsdon Community Centre for eight performances only, starting next Saturday April 20 at 7.45pm, Sunday April 21 at 3pm and again at 7.45pm. Then Wednesday 24, Thursday 25 and Friday April 26, all at 7.45pm. Saturday 27 April at 3pm and again at 7.45pm.
Tickets from http://www.twcoulsdon.org.uk
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If the play is as good as this review, I’m in