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A ghost has arrived to haunt the girls of Gash Theatre. In their newest recorded performance Gash Theatre Gets Ghosted, Maddie Flint and Nathalie Ellis-Einhorn invite us along to their haunted ghost party.
Maddie and Nathalie are on the run. Something is chasing them through a dark, scary park in the middle of the night. Their only escape is a red door. But what is awaiting them behind the door is even more terrifying, and they don’t even know it yet. A ghost has decided to haunt and taunt the two girls and will not let off until they have learned their lesson. But what lesson is it?
Haunted pots, pans, newspaper, sofas, and radios are at the disposal of the ghost to give clues and pull Maddie and Nathalie deeper and deeper into its ghoulish world. Talking furniture discussing its sex life and the people it has ghosted, flashing lights, confetti, and the fact that you can expect the unexpected fill the hour-long pre-recorded performance. Puppetry as well as a cleverly detailed set-design by Amy Mawneras and fittingly experimental cinematography by Kristina Pringle transport us into the haunted London flat.
As with their previous projects, Gash Theatre are giving it all they have: the experimental exploration of gender (and in Gash Theatre Gets Ghosted specifically masculinity), creepy mind games, minute-long movement sequences to pop songs and many, many pop references (primarily from Rick & Morty). Maddie’s wolf alter ego and Nathalie’s yearning for love are slowly but surely uncovered by the ghost and so it goes to wonder, what else it has in store before it will allow them to leave the haunted flat.
Gash Theatre Gets Ghosted is a spooky and suspenseful party pushing the boundaries of what performance is and what it can be. The only thing stopping the performance from being a genius piece of avant-garde theatre is the fact that it loses its storyline halfway through. And so, it constantly feels like a guessing game as to what the point of the crazy, scattered ghost story originally was. Although it is portraying the experimental exploration of what makes us human and what it is to be human in a gender-focused world very well, Gash Girls’ acting in narrative scenes sadly leaves much to hope for and pulls you out of the vivid imagery.
Gash Theatre Gets Ghosted is the perfect, abstract performance for anyone who likes a challenge and is looking for a deeper exploration of sexuality, femininity, masculinity, and the things that scare us, without it being too on the nose about it.
Gash Theatre Gets Ghosted is playing online until 24 April 2021. For more information and tickets visit Gash Theatre online.