REVIEW | The War Inside, The Albany Deptford

Photo EllieKurttz

★ ★

Reviewer - Penny

*Disclaimer: Gifted tickets in return for an honest review

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Marnie is a 16 year old girl who has just finished her GCSEs and is about to enjoy a brilliant summer with her friends. But with all this ahead of her, she starts experiencing bleeding and agonising pains whenever she goes to the toilet, leading instead to a summer of doctor’s appointments, pain and worry. This new writing from Albany Associate Artist Camille Dawson draws on her own experiences with autoimmune disease. Dawson is the writer, director and also one of the two actors on a “stage” that is set up to be the inside of Marnie’s body – complete with large inflatables to represent the body’s vital organs and a video screen that projects the teen’s story as it unfolds outside of the body. The audience members become Marnie’s white blood cells in an ambitious immersive experience.

Promotional material for the piece does state that it is immersive. However, on arrival at the theatre the extent of this immersive performance can feel a little daunting. Audience members are taken into a holding room and asked to put on a white tabard and hairnet so that we can become the white blood cells that are at the centre of the play. As we are taken into the staging area, a voiceover tells us that we should stay standing up if we can, which clearly causes concern for a few people. It soon becomes clear, however, that there are plenty of seats around the edge of the auditorium and anybody who needs to use them will find that it doesn’t impact on any enjoyment of what is going on.

Cristina Ottonello’s set is a creative and innovative take on the human body – it has a big impact when we enter the auditorium, enhanced by atmospheric lighting from Stacey O’Shea and a soundscape from Paul Freeman.

Unfortunately, the performance itself does not live up to the promises of the design. Having spent ten minutes hanging around in the holding room whilst people get dressed up, the beginning of the play sees Dawson’s character (a white blood cell called Ros) taking us through our basic training, which involves some aerobic moves and lining up military style ready to go into battle. This all takes a bit too long in a piece that should really be condensed into an hour’s running time (it actually runs for 95 minutes, including all the preamble). It is presumably meant as an ice breaker but doesn’t add anything to the experience. Dawson is joined on stage by Sophie Taylor, portraying one of the new intake of “baby” white blood cells. She acts as a link with the audience, drawing us into the story as she learns alongside us. Although Dawson and Taylor were confident performers with good interactions that didn’t feel forced, I didn’t think that the information conveyed was clear enough – for example, for people without any scientific knowledge, there was no clear and basic explanation of the role of white blood cells.

The use of video to show us the outside world was a good idea but one that wasn’t well executed. The sound was muffled a lot of the time, making it difficult to keep up with what was going on. Using a 16 year old girl as the central character was a good choice in showing the impact of bowel disease (or in fact any invisible illness) on somebody struggling with teenage peer pressure and cruelty, but the language used to establish the character could potentially alienate older audiences not familiar with text speak and the type of language teens use amongst themselves. Generally, the writing and delivery felt like this piece of theatre would be better suited as an educational piece for young people. It wasn’t clear who the target audience was, but as an adult, I didn’t feel I was learning anything new and the entertainment aspect felt a little juvenile.

As the performance progressed, Taylor’s character, who randomly decided to call herself Miley which was a bit confusing when we’ve already got the similarly named Marnie, led the fight against disease, interacting with the body’s vital organs in comedic dialogue that didn’t always land. At one point we saw “Miley” being interviewed by a white blood cell DJ about her inspirational leadership, which added absolutely nothing. The audience was asked to get involved in fighting disease in the body, throwing balloons, inflatables and small balls at the inflatable colon – all good fun but also fun that went on for too long.

As the performance reached its climax, real world Marnie received her diagnosis on the video screen and started to face up to dealing with what is a life-long chronic illness. The reaction to this of the white blood cells on stage felt very muddled. A rousing speech about continuing the fight against disease was far less impactful than giving consideration to how this would affect Marnie, her friends and family would have been.

The War Inside tackles an issue that affects so many people and anything that can raise awareness and understanding of invisible illnesses is to be applauded. However, I felt that this project was a little too ambitious which meant that the message around improving visibility was lost in the theatrical interpretation of the white blood cells which ultimately overshadowed Marnie’s story. By focussing on the war inside, the day-to-day war outside was sidelined. But, with a little work on the script, improving the video quality and cutting out some of the padding to get a more manageable running time, there is definitely a future for this undoubtedly original and unique experience.

At The Albany until 30 September.