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His wife is far more excited at finding three eggs and she intends to cook them for the return of their son from the outside world. Zinnie Harris’s 1999 play conveys the spartan life experienced by the islanders with deft strokes.
A woman (Shapla Salique) sings in a wordless, keening chant as Mill (Jenna Russell) and her husband Bill (Cyril Nri) eagerly await their son Francis (Archie Madekwe).
The simple setting, the singing and the offbeat rhythms of the dialogue create an atmosphere of mystery and timelessness.
Harris was inspired by the story of Tristan da Cunha, the most remote inhabited island on the planet, and its occupants were evacuated when a volcano erupted in 1961.
By the time the prodigal son arrives with Mr Hansen (Gerald Kyd, smooth as silk), his boss at a Cape Town jar manufacturer, it is clear that a more man-made disruption is imminent.
The pair have come to assess the island’s viability for a new factory to take advantage of plentiful crawfish off the coast.
Wracked with guilt after an unexpected encounter with his ex-girlfriend Rebecca (Kirsty Rider), Francis has a change of heart about the factory.
So Hansen leaves, only to return with a rescue boat when that ‘something terrible’ finally manifests itself – the volcano that annihilates the island community.
Relocated to England (or H’Inglan’ in the island patois), they work in another factory of Hansen’s, yearning to return home.
Director Jennifer Tang and designer Soutra Gilmour create a sense of isolation through simple staging.
The islanders’ close relationship with the natural elements is conveyed largely through lighting and sound.
In the second half, a circular arrangement of grey tables represents the more mundane reality of the factory.
Each character speaks in a different regional accent, from Scottish to Somerset, suggesting the diversity of a population that has drifted together from elsewhere.
As they struggle with their new environment, the conflict is affectingly expressed in Mill’s speech comparing island life with that of their new, temporary home.
We then discover that in the recent past, supply boats failed to arrive on the island for months on end.
The dark secret about the action the islanders took to avoid starvation finally emerges with tragic inevitability.
A strange, slow, compelling and thoughtful play that is more complex than it appears.
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