Writer: Josh Anderson-Grey
Director: Dimitra Kalesiaki
Hash Brown Theatre were to bring their piece Corners, a play built around monologues from interviews done with rough sleepers, to the cancelled VAULT Festival 2022 . To this year’s Festival, they have bought Seeking Delphi, a work-in-progress inspired by the Women of Troy, about three homeless women seeking out stability, security and a way to change their fate.
The play opens with the women utilising the local council pool to get a shower and relief from their life on the streets. There is an obvious creative process at work in this performance and the actors, Stephanie Arkinstall, , Murphee Thompson and Abigail Stone work harmoniously together using biodynamic patterns of dance and performance as well as soliloquies to tell the harrowing and traumatic stories of these three homeless women. This approach works especially well during the narrative of a woman sleeping rough with her baby and her dog, protector and friend.
Between scenes we hear over the audio the monologue of homeless people, including one of a mother who is living in a co-sex shelter inhabited by drug users when she is now months clean and sober and desperate to get away from that reality. She needs her own accommodation.
The audio hints at the deep, complex and interactional lived experiences of women living on the streets but these are not reflected in, indeed feel disconnected from, the performance. There are mentions of the desperate measures women have to go through to survive on the street, with its inherent dangers from predators and, simply, men. There is also an emphasis on their camaraderie and fun in getting through it together whilst dreaming of a better future. But overall Seeking Delphi feels diluted and lacking in depth.
Runs until 17 March 2023
