Tarmac Lullaby
Written by Daniel Orejon
There are two principal elements which make Crested Fool's Tarmac Lullaby a success: Daniel Orejon's conviction in lacing contemporary gothic with classical macabre and Erin Elkin's terrifically engaged performance.
In this one-act solo show, stripped back of all props and set outside of a notebook & pen and a bench, Tarmac Lullaby engorges the creative muscles and bears more than a few fangs in its fear-inducing structure. It goes a long way to prove that the stripped-back approach can be turned into an advantage as the audience hones their focus on Elkin's performances and Orejon's script. It finds a young woman, a teacher, sitting outside a supermarket, distracted by her writing when she spots an old collage.
What emerges is an explosive compendium of more contemporary horrors, though still pumping with a gorgeously morbid sense of misery and acute tales of Poe or Lovecraft. Where the character Elkin plays once possessed a panache for easing the worries of colleagues and an envious talent to quieten unruly primary-school children, their tales have taken a more concerning shift in direction as they sit, reciting their tales of horror and mystery, casually penning a tale.
From the depths of our anxieties and age-old worries comes a feast of the arcane, the otherworldly, the spiritual, and most concerningly – the familiar. Takes of newborn tears are streaked with the crimson of blood; an office worker plagued by a constant tapping; tendrils and visceral bodily scares emerging from our illuminated screens; and even a touch of the with a spectre in the car. Each story is an isolated piece of genius, they lace and construct an entirely new monster.
So much so, that as Orejon's script comes to tie the compendium into a twisted and malicious bow – we've already been waiting for ten or so minutes. The consequence is that Elkin is still holding the narrative threads up, long after the impact has been made, and though they manage to maintain an element of detached eeriness, the audience is ready for the materialised finale too early: we suspect where it's all been leading too faster than Orejon intends.
What is equally as plain to visualise is the longevity of the show, there's a terrifically malleable idea at play, which greatly benefits from Elkin's unnervingly reserved performance, one which seems detached – but is remarkably canny and far more terrifying than the images drawn out of the words. There's a trust to ensure Elkin isn't overloading the stories, which so often occurs with horror, and instead threads in such a sublime control of their language, their body, and understated performance, that Tarmac Lullaby becomes as much an enticing siren call of woe and lament, as it is a contemporary mystery with a few fangs and tendrils.
Sycamore Grove
Written by Daniel Williams
Directed by Liam Rees
In a similar vein to Tarmac Lullaby, though following a singular plot-arc this time, Daniel Williams' Sycamore Grove channels the purest of arcane thoughts and evils right into the contemporary with their spin on the suburban American horror: think Desperate Housewives meets Rosemary's Baby.
Hannah, and partner Ben, don't quite have their life as tightly under control as Charlotte does with successful partner Colin. Things seem to click for the pair. And Ben's envy starts to make a clear impression, that is, until Charlotte and Colin share their little secret – they've been getting "help" with all the luck in their life. And all Ben needs to do? Just add a few symbols of power to his daily routine, nothing sinister in that, surely?
Almost in round, sequential, Liam Rees' direction captures Williams' less-crowded script with an immediate effect. Projecting directly to the audience, the cast of four manage to construct the brick and mortar surrounding them to craft, not only Charlotte's (Rebecca Wilkie) and Colin's (Nicholas Alban's) home, but the frustrations and difficulties Hannah (Cara Watson) and Ben (Conor O'Dwyer) find themselves within. That's all that is required to grasp the immediacy of threat and set-up for the show, with rather brilliantly clean direction from Rees.
Strength comes in the form of the audience's connection with non-believer Hannah, watching Ben crumble and descend in front of her eyes with his obsessive necessity for the symbols. They corrupt, slowly, but strikingly, and O'Dwyer wears every ounce of the physical drain they have in his expression and body language. Gradually, the use of symbols, and of ancient masters and powers makes way for a far more chilling moment in which Ben's desperation to keep Hannah emerges into a more realistic, cruel, and familiar use of abusive tactics. It's a brave and smart step in the production's writing from Williams.
The only issue of which is the pacing, mainly constrained by the shortness of the festival's individual runtimes. Sycamore Grove makes plenty of room to enable performances to evolve and grow, Wilkie's Charlotte turning more and more into a terrifically manipulative foe, especially when able to lose the façade, but the production could do with an additional five–ten minutes to really capture the tone and excellence the performances are capable of.
There is something remarkably sinister, and sharply adept to Sycamore Grove which could flourish into an inferno of unprecedented contemporary horror: it's right there. And as the semiotics of all this sign work grow and consume, the flames and collapse are inevitable. But maybe not for who audiences may suspect. Gripping, with plenty of contemporary macabre humour, there's additional life for Sycamore Grove beyond the festival.
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