By Aashiq
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hENM4sMGZbU
Available until: Unknown
Just a reminder that Future Voices is a series of plays written by young people. I don't give star ratings because I don't want to compare them with the other Future Voices plays. But the standard of writing is very high and if I did give stars, they would compare very favourably to plays by professional writers.
Babylon is set in a strange world. Rules are different. Names are different. There are two characters. One of them seems to have some understanding of what’s going on. The other has questions and wants to understand more about the world she lives in.
This is such a clever play by Peace Eyabunch. It’s a fairly simple idea which is presented in six minutes of conversation, but there’s so much packed into it. Seriously, it’s more tightly packed than one of my suitcases when holidays were a thing. But unlike my suitcase, nothing is squashed and forced down. There’s a lot in this, but there’s space for us to breathe and think and feel.
It can be really difficult writing about a new reality. A lot of writers make it all about the shock value and the weirdness and make everything as different as they can. Peace has been much cleverer and gone for something that has things in common with our world. The characters are in an odd situation but they’re very like us, enough like us for us to identify with them and it makes us feel like… that could be me in that situation. Obviously, I hope it never will be because it’s flipping freaky, but you know when you get that sort of prickle of unease? The kind you get when you’re watching something really creepily good. Or just when you’re sneaking into the kitchen to eat chocolate and you just know you’re going to get caught.
I’ll try to put that in a more sensible way. If you watch something that doesn’t seem right and it’s obviously a completely alien situation in every way then you can admire the piece intellectually, but you won’t always get an emotional connection or not straight away. Peace gives us an emotional connection right from the start and makes us care about what’s happening and what will happen.
The conversation is set up really well too. One person who wants to talk and one person who doesn’t want to talk. Without even the hint of a big screaming row (and we get enough of those on TV), there’s immediate conflict. Two characters wanting different things. And when the play ends and some sort of conclusion is reached, you know it’s not over. Peace doesn’t quite leave us hanging which is the most annoying things ever, but they’ve got me thinking about what will happen next (as well as wondering what the bleep is this crazy place). My brain is buzzing and hardly anyone can do that to my brain at 4am. Babylon is that good.
Unusually, director Grace Gibson has been able to get both her actors in the same screen instead of on Zoom and that really gives the scene an extra intensity right from the start. The non-verbal performances from the actors, Jessica Clark and Emeka Sesay, are really strong and tell you so much about the general atmosphere in this mysterious place. Jessica’s overwhelming curiosity is endearing and Emeka’s guardedness shows the vulnerability of the situation. The final image is so powerful and gives so much promise of what is to come. Except it doesn’t because that’s the end of the play, but there’s a real sense of jeopardy and risk, without giving us any idea at all exactly what they’re risking, all conveyed in a short conversation and a really slow piece of movement.
Really incredible and such a strong feeling that
everything in this play is perfectly in place. (Is it just me who really wants
a sequel?)
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