Fringe review: The Soaking of Vera Shrimp
A charming premise belies a weighty story of grief from performer Martha Walker. ★★★★★
What a perfect little jewel-box of a play this is, tucked into a tiny space in the estimable Holden Street Theatre where the audience sits inches away from the action. Martha Walker, who carries the show, is supple and vital, her emotions dancing over her face as she describes the raindrops she can read and understand simply by touching them.
There’s nowhere here for Walker to hide, and the intimacy of the tiny room makes her direct address and our audience involvement feel as if we’re simply taking part in a conversation with the wee girl laying out her heart in front of us. It’s rare too that a one-hour script feels so perfectly right: not rushed or squeezed from a larger story butchered to fit into a fringe’s relentless by-the-hour schedules.
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Underlying the fanciful premise is a story of deep grief, more specifically the selfishness of bereavement when we can’t lift the smothering blanket of sorrow from our faces to see that other people need us. Sometimes we’re bad at loss: Vera’s school uniform smells and there’s no food in the house. No one takes care of her, so she constructs a world where she doesn’t need to be taken care of (until she does, with terrible consequences). This emotionally devastating play will break your heart in two and, if you’re lucky enough still to have her, make you want to call your mum.
The Soaking of Vera Shrimp is playing at Holden Street Theatres from February 17 – March 22
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