The Wild Unfeeling World – Casey Jay Andrews
The Garden, Holden St Theatres
By Sarah List
The world is a pretty wild place at the moment. I’m not sure if unfeeling describes current events, but it no doubt has left you a little emotionally depleted. Well, be prepared to be punched right in whatever feels you have left by Casey Jay Andrews, as she brings to life the literary classic Moby Dick in a modern day London setting. Written and acted entirely by Andrews, she brings to life Dylan, a suffering Brit who is on the verge of breakdown after losing her job, her home and being mugged. But that’s not the worst of it. In her barely viable VW named Moby, she clipped a cat and it lost its leg. The cat is on the warpath for revenge and somewhere in her sixth sense, Dylan knows it and dreads it. Have you guessed yet that the cat is Ahab?
Andrews solo performance is full of emotive vigor, that stretches between elation to deep sadness. In the fairy light lit garden of the Holden Street Theatres with the audience in close quarters, there’s a real sense of how small theatre over the centuries must have felt and looked in those times, and Andrews delivers in a way that’s utterly convincing she may have been doing this for many lifetimes.
After last years similarly personal and deeply emotional rollercoaster ‘The Archive of Educated Hearts, The Wild Unfeeling World is again a personal reflection of the weight of mental illness amongst our friends and family, and their fear of sharing for being a burden on those around them. Its retelling of Moby Dick takes some license on the original story, but it remans valid and powerful.
One of those shows that reminds you how to feel and especially empathise. Beautiful, crazy, hilarious and somber all at once.
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