A contemporary re-imagining with supporting drama games.
Though ten years has passed since it's Bristol Old Vic premiere, Fin Kennedy's contemporary re-imagining of Kaiser's final play – The Raft of the Medusa – retains the original's stark setting and bleakness while adding layers of humanity in this timely adaptation.
Set during an unnamed war, the original's World War II setting is dismissed to ensure the audience is not allowed to write it off as a period piece but instead regarded as something relevant to our times. Life Raft finds thirteen survivors of a ship's sinking stuck in a lifeboat in the middle of the ocean.
With rescue uncertain, the boat's leader Allan sets out ways on ensuring the survival of all of its occupants, something that's derailed by the discovery of a stowaway and a few miscalculations, meaning it isn't long before the children's grasp on humanity is tested in shocking ways.
Indeed, though comparisons to Golding's Lord of the Flies might seem obvious, here the action is limited to just five days, each enshrouded in fog at either end, suggesting the murky events to come.
Kennedy decides, wisely, to add humanity to the script – the original's use of numbers for children save the main three is pleasingly jettisoned here, with characters fleshed out and motives explicit. Bullies, carers, the weak and the strong are all present but never as stock characters. Instead, Kennedy allows the room for each to explore what makes them human when faced with such bleak conditions. Without giving anything away, the original's ending is given a more traditional makeover here with a coda which adds a disturbing but inevitable twist.
However, there is more here than just the play text, with forewords and introductions from those involved in the Old Vic's staging and an insight into the process which saw the script brought to life in performance. The addition of several drama games developed by Tassos Stevens, all of which are connected to the themes and action of the play, is a welcome one with plenty of opportunity for teachers to dive deep into the themes of the text.
So, while it might be every man for himself onboard, back on dry land every man and woman has plenty here to get on board with.