Written and performed by Gemma Walker-Farren, GHOSTS is a one-woman show about our relationship with fear and how it is an ‘ancient and otherworldly’ feeling. It is about the ghosts we carry with us through life and how we can sometimes be ghosts in our own lives.
In this finely crafted piece of drama, childhood fears to adult anxieties are woven together with Greek myths and ghostly tales. Incredible projections and soundscapes carry the audience seamlessly from claustrophobic bedrooms to the vast halls of Hades with horror and heartbreak in between. From the childhood bedroom to the young adults shared house, to the elder years and to much in the middle, this work is powerful and it is enthralling.
The simple stage-setting with just a ‘quilt cover’ as a prop worked superbly. And it did create multiple characters throughout.
Last night I was made to think about my own ghosts of past and of how they impacted life in everyday. The ghosts of parenthood…..the ghosts of uncertainty…..the ghosts from those childhood days we had long forgotten – or had I? I loved the Greek myth incorporation and I was made to remember Heaney’s ‘The Underground’ as a result.
The music, soundscapes and projections transport us from our very thinking to another world. And always we contemplate our own world.
Ghosts are not always the white sheet, the floaty figure. Ghosts are in our mind, they’re in our very being. Anxieties and fears are all a type of ghost. No-one escapes. And watching this performance earlier tonight made me stop and consider all of my own anxieties. They’re there and they’re real. We all have them.
Maybe this piece of theatre is enough to make us realise that we really aren’t alone. That everyone has fears, anxieties. Everyone has ghosts.
Gemma Walker-Farren performs this beautifully and brilliantly. It’s so well crafted and acted in a way we are forced to look at ourselves. And we’re forced to familiarise ourselves with some Greek mythology too.
This is an interesting and therapeutic piece of theatre. It’s different and it’s very real.
Showing again tomorrow night at Echo Echo studios in Derry at 8pm. Highly worth a viewing and you might just learn something about yourself when there.
Tickets can be bought at https://www.wegottickets.com/echoechodancetheatre# or purchased on arrival tomorrow night.
GMcC
- Written and performed by Gemma Walker-Farren.
- Directed by Tonya Sheina.
- Sound, video and lighting design by Barry Davis.
North West Culture Gal 