The Sewage is a story of two brothers who drop their goldfish down the toilet. In the pursuit to find their pet, they stumble upon a grotesque, bizarre and rather unusual place within the sewage. The brothers come across unusual creatures and find themselves in some ‘sticky’ situations – quite literally sometimes. There are also some truly captivating moments using shadow puppetry and lanterns, showing the beautiful within the grotesque.
The major highlight of this performance are the actors’ ability to turn moments that would not normally make an adult laugh (like toilet-based jokes) and make them seem hilarious through use of buffoonery and slapstick. This is a kind of comedy that I haven’t seen in recent times, and the cast executed it in such a great way. They had the entire audience in fits of laughter the entire time. There was lots of stage combat, and there was so much energy throughout the entire performance.
I was in awe at the cast's ability to completely remain in character the entire time. The characterisation was exceptionally strong and each new character felt so nuanced and well thought out. There is a lot of audience interaction within this piece – most of which entails the different characters, particularly the grotesque sewer creatures, trying to hand you rubbish and encouraging you to clap for them or laugh at another character. This interaction was really useful in keeping the audience engaged and was seemingly welcomed by everyone in the audience (that I could tell at least).
Towards the end, there’s a scene where one of the characters prepares to battle the sewer creatures and ‘Eye of the Tiger’ plays as he dresses himself and equips himself with cleaning products. This has to be one of my favourite moments. The audience were cheering and I realised just how invested I was in the story and characters.
The concept of this piece is so weird and strange. I certainly was not expecting to have so much fun and enjoy myself as much as I did. It was like a fever dream when watching but I was fully immersed in this sewer world. The whole piece is silly, wacky and hilarious!
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