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

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

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

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