Daniel Harrison
And so it came to be that, on a muggy and uncomfortable late summer evening, the Finborough fell foul to the elements, as an audience of just thirteen braced the heat to take in Robert Price’s production of Fishskin Trousers. Even in the Finborough’s intimate surroundings, you couldn’t help but notice how sparsely the space was populated. A pity, because Fishskin Trousers had some interesting messages to deliver, seasoned with a poetic flair, and an underlying and powerful sense of fear and the unknown.
This is a new piece of writing from Elizabeth Kuti. We are introduced to Mab, a twelfth-century servant, who regales us with the story of how her village caught ‘the wild man’ in their fisher nets, a creature which only Mab seems to connect with and care for. On the same spot, 800 years later, we hear from Ben, a scientist in 1973, who is hearing strange noises as he tries to fix the Orford Ness radar system. A generation later we meet Mog, Ben’s daughter whom he never met, suffering from suffocating loneliness and contemplating an uncertain future.
There is plenty of mysticism and intrigue in Kuti’s script, but she is most insightful when exploring themes relating to isolation and seclusion, heightened more by the rural setting. Happiness, “is over there,” exhales Mog, extending a wanting hand out into the audience, and grasping only air. Happiness is something which is “eternally unreached”, expressing fears and feelings which we all have faced at some point, as “black dogs” (how Winston Churchill described his own depression) pursue her to the water’s edge. This is a recurring theme, and is thoughtfully touched upon in both Mab and Ben’s monologues, too.
Yet, despite this, and try as I might, I often found it difficult to care about Ben and Mog. These were flawed and needy characters, yes, but, for me at least, they failed to strike have resonance for me as an audience member. Perhaps the answer could have been to have split the monologues up more than they were already, splicing the action and making the most of the three distinct historical locations. I found myself getting a little fatigued from time to time.
It was Jessica Carroll as Mab who was the most riveting. Carroll dominated the piece, displaying a subversive attitude that was striking and impressive. The language Kuti gifts her helps too; Carroll splutters out archaic and curious words and phrases long lost through 800 years of discursive development, and this works to make her thoroughly endearing. We, as an audience, are really rooting for her; it’s just a shame the same can’t be said of Ben on Mog, despite convincing performances from Brett Brown and Eva Traynor respectively.
Fishskin Trousers works to link these three stories, these three lives, with charm, poignancy and the occasional flash of dark wit. It is often haunting and often revealing; telling us potentially more about the human condition than it does about the three individuals on display. It is by no means a perfect piece of theatre, but certainly deserves to play to bigger houses than the one that saw it tonight.
Fishskin Trousers is on at the Finborough Theatre until 28 September. For more information and tickets, see the Finborough Theatre website.