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The Master Shipwright’s House in Deptford must be one of the most gorgeously romantic secret spots in London: sparkling with fairy lights, a semi-ruined house and garden, on the brink of the mighty Thames where ships were once built and sent across the world in search of cheap natural resources, profit and glory. Behind the stage, the city scrapes the sky, sinister towers reflected brightly in the cold black water.
It all makes a wonderful and apt open-air setting for this new play about climate change, put together for the We Are Lewisham festival by veteran director Melly Still and musician Max Barton.
‘The Gretchen Question’ brings together three women from different eras: eighteenth-century Gretchen (Lauren Moakes), working with dastardly fellows from the Royal Society to form a company and exploit a new fuel source; modern-day Lulit (Tamaira Hesson), a poet who wakes up sick in an ice rink, and influencer Maisie (Yohanna Ephraim), on an ill-advised extreme Arctic adventure where she’s supposed to be greenwashing the fuel company’s reputation.
There’s a strong cast and some nice ideas - I loved the way the players recorded the audience’s collective heartbeat, at the start, playing it back at a crucial moment later on. But the plot is bonkers: so much that I found it increasingly hard to figure out what was going on or why.
There are so many shocking true and historical stories about climate change, that it seems like a very weird choice to centre this one on oysters from outer space. Where did the space oysters come from? Why do their blue pearls spontaneously catch fire? Why would one kill a baby (a terrifyingly sinister puppet baby in a bonnet)? Why is Lulit vomiting blue gunk in an ice rink with two guys called Dave? What’s Goethe got to do with it? And why are all the animals dying in the Arctic? I’m none the wiser after watching. And our three heroines, who wind up smoking fags together somewhere in the Lyra constellation while listening to The Carpenters, don’t seem to know or care much ultimately either.
It’s a shame, as this has wonderful elements: breathtaking setting, interesting staging ideas, rapt audio and music, and a strong lyrical and physical turn from Tamaira Hesson.
But it’s impossible to follow and highly eccentric: watching it is like being buttonholed on the bus by a mad person or small child who tells you a long story whose logic is based on entirely magical thinking, such as the fact that ‘Gretchen’ means ‘pearl’.
I’m glad I went to see it: the weather was fine that evening and the setting is worth a trip in itself - but I wish it had been edited more rigorously, as this feels like a missed opportunity to make an important piece of work on the most important subject in the world.