REVIEW: Notch, Vault Festival 2020 at The Vaults London ✭✭✭

Mark Ludmon reviews Danaja Wass’s show, Notch, at Vault Festival in London

Notch The Thelmas The Vaults London
Notch
Crypt, Vault Festival, London
Three stars
Vault Festival Website

Drawing on her own experiences of being a Croatian immigrant in Ireland, Danaja Wass has created a new solo show infused with heartache, rage and bitter humour. Wass herself plays AA, a young woman who has escaped a hopeless existence in a post-industrial town in Croatia to find her potential in Dublin. However, after six months, things have not worked out as planned, and she is living in a hostel with a taser under her pillow to defend herself. A stranger in a strange land, AA finds herself treated with hostility, becoming “the other”, an invisible outsider, a nonentity.

Notch Vault Festival 2020

Through a fragmentary structure and raw poetic language, Notch charts how AA’s experiences of homelessness and xenophobia exacerbate mental health problems, undermining her ability to hold down a job and triggering a dangerous sexual obsession. With tears glistening on her face, Wass gives an unsettling, heart-breaking performance, taking us down a dark path to the depths of despair and hopelessness.

Like the broken, often fuzzy images on the on-stage TV, the narrative sometimes loses focus and lucidity before bursting back into horrifying clarity. However, directed by Madelaine Moore and produced by writing company The Thelmas, Notch is a  compassionate piece that puts the spotlight on the immigrant experience as well as homelessness and mental health.

Running to 23 February 2020

Photos: Steve Gregson

VAULT FESTIVAL WEBSITE

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