Writer: Tiwai Muza and Joseph Ward
Director: Joseph Ward
For a play about rave, Disc Jockey is certainly short on euphoria. Instead, Tiwai Muza and Joseph Ward’s play is all about the comedown. It’s a shame that we don’t see the enough of the highs as this would make the lows more painful. However, strong storytelling ensures that this play about drug addiction doesn’t disappoint.
We meet DJ on the cusp of fame. One of his tracks has been picked up by a hotshot music producer. Super clubs like Fabric beckon. But these happy times are already darkened with foreboding. His best mate Wilf is talking about wanting to be straight for work on Monday mornings, Poppy has appeared on the scene sensing that DJ’s success may lead to free drugs while DJ himself already takes bumps of this and that to remain focussed during his set. There is only one brief moment where we see them dancing and enjoying the music. Otherwise, it’s just one long comedown.
While DJ’s addiction spirals out of control, Wilf and girlfriend Clara slowly extricate themselves from the clubbing scene. They now favour early nights and ask DJ to turn his music down. In the hands of Muza, DJ retains his innocence throughout; he’s mostly happy in his drug habit, only showing anger when his friends tell him to stop. Muza is a mesmerising figure on the small stage.
Playing the endlessly cheerful American Wilf is Will Ni, and he convinces in his struggle to follow his contradictory twin desires of hedonism and money. Sarah Cameron West plays Clara who initially has no problem teaching infants on Monday morning, suggesting that their happy faces pull her out of the jaws of a drug-addled despair. Mei Mei Macleod is spectacularly good as the manipulative and selfish Poppy, and she feels frighteningly real.
Sometimes the play is unnecessarily dramatic and this makes it very different from Mia Hansen-Løve’s film Eden where DJ Paul’s addiction is monotonous destroying his soul rather than his body. In Disc Jockey the drug-taking is more problematic with none of the characters really looking that they are about to descend into a K hole. Their highs are suspiciously lucid.
Towards the end of this 80-minute play the narrative is heightened by some moments of theatricality – flashbacks, a montage and the breaking of the fourth wall – and these additions are welcome but Ward and Muza don’t quite know how to conclude and perhaps the narrative strands don’t need to be finished so cleanly. However, the final scene is chillingly successful.
Runs until 5 February 2022
