Naima Khan reviews an intense deeply though provoking play that lifts the lid on the personal devestaion of hurricane Katrina.
In The Day The Waters Came, currently playing at Unicorn Theatre, writer Lisa Evans weaves together the pieces that make up the ongoing nightmares of a 14 year old girl who returns to New Orleans a year after hurricane Katrina. Maya, her friends, her brother, her mother and their neighbours take us through their pre-Katrina days filled with boys, make-up, her mother's shifts at the local hospital and her brother's life in prison.
Though she has an audience of primarily teenagers and young adults in mind, Evans' play has emotional hooks for everyone. Four actors impressively portray a multitude of characters from toddlers to the elderly, and prisoners who transform into unlikely heroes. Her characters and their lives grip her audience and doll out surprise after surprise as the waters rise, and mix with the swamps forcing the characters onto rooftops in the searing heat.
The play is supported by a roller-coaster ride of sound from Dan Steele, simple but affective set design from Jean Chan and a fantastic cast. Amber Cameron as Maya exudes energy and conveys her confusion and kind-heartedness with consistent warmth. Playing multiple characters, Darlene Charles, Uriah Manning and Shane Frater transform themselves from children to adults time and time again with ease and impressive skill.
With an upbeat, refreshingly positive lead character, Evans highlights the humour to be found in such extreme circumstances but never relents from a continuous stream of new and unsettling facts, revealing what the news images of 2005 didn't. Advised to head to the Super Drome for food and fresh water, Maya and her neighbours risk travelling through toxic water to get there, but find no help. It's overcrowded, hot and full of the stench of blocked toilets.
Whilst the intensity of the play is to be celebrated, it lacks a sense of contemplation. In an hour long performance it hammers home the catastrophe of the event with lyrical descriptions of the devastation. The devastation is not only physical but emotional as young Maya realises no one is coming to help. The events of the hurricane are brilliantly brought to life by the talented cast but its quiet moments are brief, though this is understandable given the short running time. Having said that, as I write this review I can't help but recall all the things I learnt from The Day The Waters Came. It forces one to stop and mull over not just the play, but what it divulged and affirmed. So Evans has succeed in creating a thought-provoking play that lingers and refuses to allow its audience to leave without making time to reflect.
The Day The Waters Came runs at Unicorn Theatre until 9th October
Image: Robert Day
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