Choreographer: Malik Nashad Sharpe
“Demonic”, someone says when leaving Marikiscrycrycry’s horror-infused dance playing at the BAC this week. Conjuring up images of that shower scene from Psycho and alluding to KKK lynchings, Goner is certainly dark. However, it is also very funny. There’s blood, but laughs too.
For the first 20 minutes of the piece, there’s nothing to be frightened of as Marikiscrycrycry, dressed in cut-off denims and some fetching red trainers, gives his backside a workout. With his back to the audience, he whines like a pro, and for a while, it seems as if this will make up the whole of the 60-minute performance. Is the shower curtain that dominates the stage a red herring?
Luke Blair’s frenetic sound design begins to stutter when a voice repeats “Don’t look in the shower”. And when the music finally stops, Marikiscrycrycry (the alias of Malik Nashad Sharpe) finally turns around, his mouth full of surprise. At last, he goes into the shower, with the back-lights creating some spectral imagery. Those waiting for the promised blood won’t be disappointed.
The horror is tempered by a wonderful story of murder that he tells, again with his back to the audience, hunched over a microphone. Not many audience members laugh, however, perhaps fearing what is to come next, but it’s a comedic, thrillingly immoral tale nevertheless.
The fragmented structure sometimes works against the sense of horror that Marikiscrycrycry achieves in the shower scene, leaving the audience to wonder what the show is all about. But it’s best not to look for narrative and instead enjoy the dance moves and to interrogate our own relish for true-life crime and scary movies.
Goner arrives at the BAC just a few weeks after Norwegian theatre company Susie Wang’s Burnt Toast, another venture into absurdity and horror. It appears that our appetite for violence has increased when wars are all the rage. By the end of Goner, Sharpe references the violence meted out on Black bodies, but that won’t stop him whining and waacking.
Runs until 10 May 2025
