Dionysus descends from Olympia to manage a chicken shop in Penge. Here, as Dennis (Jorell Coiffic-Kamall), he faces Wendy (Annie Siddons) across the counter. Childhood friends, adult saviours. Arriving at the lowest point of Wendy’s life, he goes onto inspire and lead the rebellion against the pencil-pushing Neil’s (Asaf Zohar) tyrannical reign over their local job centre. As a reimagining of Euripides’ The Bacchae, it seeks to provide a voice to those abandoned in austerity.

Siddon’s writing is stellar. Told through spoken word poetry, the task undertaken is gargantuan; an odyssey blossoming from the mundane. Steadily paced, it inches forward in anecdotal structure, with every divergence to the past meeting the road ahead with unforeseen consequences.

Consistently funny, it draws humour organically from resonant references that sit firmly in the familiar without getting caught up in stereotypes. There is no doubt that the text is coherent, ambitious, surprising; succeeding in its intentions. The deep irony of requiring divine intervention to humanise Wendy and her comrades-in-arms is genius.

Frustration grows from its translation to the stage. Zohar’s score compliments the tone of the work perfectly, providing a continual rhythm that the piece latches on to. Despite this, only occasionally does it move beyond underscoring the action, and the times that it does are where the work fleetingly edges beyond the page. Dennis of Penge places too much stock in the text’s ability to carry the performance, and a lack of clarity and thematic consistency leads to Siddons’ carefully placed threads to entangle themselves, or failing to grab hold in the first place.

Particularly apparent is the conflict it seeks to set up, with Zohar’s antagonist unbelievable and meek in comparison to Coiffic-Kamall. Whilst Dennis is heralded by a refocusing of lighting and musical motifs, Neil is afforded no such support. This reduces the obstacles that the play fights to overcome, ultimately calling into question the strife of its characters.

Together with the inconsistent dramatic performances from Siddons and Zohar, the cast do not hold the space together, leading to a stop-start climax. Coiffic-Kamall’s shoulders most of the performance, shifting between the unrelenting intensity and magnetism of Dennis, to the playfully self-aware co-narrator to Siddons.

Little variation in the delivery of text leads to an odd opposition between the electricity of the words and relative monotony of the spectacle. Whilst the production is face-value vivid, the absence of risk or experimentation is stark. The production is unable to reconcile the potential of the text with the reality of the stage.

 

Dennis of Penge is playing Ovalhouse until 6th October. For more information and tickets, see here.