Water molecules, we are told at the commencement of this Theatre as Aquarium experience, are amicable atoms which like attachment and are tactile and societal. Quite a contrast to the techno set and situations we are presented with in this imported production that comes to us following two sell out runs in London and en route to BAM (New York), directed by David Farr, Associate Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company and a former Artistic Director at London’s Lyric Hammersmith.

Using water as the intrinsic link between its characters, WATER spans two generations, two continents and two sets of relationships.

Can one dive deeply into what is a shallow relationship? Has technology, with its Skype and Twitter and Smartphone actually served to disconnect us as tactile beings – Social Network being as oxymoronic as Military Intelligence? We now interface remotely, with true feelings finding the same purchase as water off a duck’s back. As the world’s oceans rise, our wells of emotion evaporate, humanity dehydrated, like marine mammals marooned by receding tides.

One relationship of the piece examines two estranged half-brothers who meet for the first time on the eve of their father’s cremation. The older brother, played by Ferdy Roberts, is a marine biologist with mental illness and a mummy fixation. His younger and more successful brother played by Oliver Dimsdale, handles the loss very differently. He’s a hip shock jock working for WAIL radio, a playful pun which serves to highlight the sibling’s polarity.

A parallel story of a pragmatic political aide, Claire, played by Poppy Miller trying to grapple with issues of climate change and commitment with her semen donor seaman, Joe (Dimsdale in doubling mode), a deep water diver who cannot fathom her.

Water weaves the political and the personal together. Unfortunately, it doesn’t make waves. The production’s use of visual and sonic storytelling techniques is clever but cloying. Some of it works but mostly the theatrical is thwarted by pseudo-cinema and dance floor deejaying. Video and sound are mixed live on stage by composer Tim Phillips and the actors, but this ploy only seems to alienate the human factor more. Of course, that may be its intention.

A Filter and Lyric Hammersmith production, WATER created by Filter and David Farr, opened at the Sydney Theatre, Walsh Bay on Wednesday 12th September and runs until Sunday 23rd September, 2012.

© Richard Cotter

15 September, 2012