Review: Maggots (Bush Theatre)

Review by Sam Waite

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

There are certain things in this life which are undeniably true. For many of us, there is the fact that we know so little about those we share walls with, who we are so physically close to and yet so disconnected from. In Maggots, Farah Najib’s new play in the Bush Theatre’s Studio space, members of a less-than-social community must grapple with this alongside that most irrefutable of truths – eventually, all of us will die.

Introduced by its cast of three as a story being told, rather than performed fully in character, Maggots introduces us to several neighbours at Laurel House, a non-descript housing block somewhere in London. The sporadically (at best) used group chat comes alive when Linda of number 60 wonders, has anyone else noticed a “dodgy smell” recently? As people begin to notice the unusual scent, and the sudden infestation of maggots in their homes, number 62’s single mother adds a more ominous question to the mix – when did anyone last see the lady in 61?

Najib introduces many of the block’s residents while the cast do not explicitly play any of them. Roles are not only multiple but fluid, shifted between, even performed by more than one storyteller at a time. Marcia Lecky, Sam Baker Jones and Safiyya Ingar move about the studio space as if they too – like a foul scent, an infestation, or a budding sense of community – are spreading through Laurel House. In keeping with the text, which borrows these actors’ names to clarify which of the three says each line, Jess Barton’s direction keeps a fairly casual energy for the early scenes in particular, though she allows the characters’ anxious, pulsating energy to permeate the storytellers as the evening progresses.

The set consists, on the stage itself, of simply two mismatched wooden chairs and a two-seater sofa. With this, Caitlin Mawhinney suggests the simplicity and nondescript nature of the housing block, and things become less literal when the audience raise their heads. An array of bouquets hang overhead as if to both represent and disguise the sickly, unpleasantly sweet aroma which sets Maggots’ story into motion. Coupled with some genuinely startling moments of lighting from Peter Small creating changing seasons and violent weather effects, as well as oft-muted but consistently unsettling sound design from Duramaney Karama, the staging is thoughtful, reflective, and embeds the audience just enough into the narrative without letting us forget what we are told as the lights go down – this isn’t something that happened to these actors, it is simply a story we are being told.

While all three of the actors here bring their own strengths to the work, it would feel odd to review them separately. That is, they work so well as a collective entity that their unique traits combine to a singular, unified performance which brings to life two stories of the fictional Laurel House. There’s a sense of camaraderie between them, with even a misplaced line being met with warmth and affection, that turns on a dime to welcome in a darker energy as life in Laurel House becomes more and more discomforting. Some simple mannerisms suggest specific characters, but when things do overlap and it’s unclear who is speaking or if anyone we’ve already met is speaking, it merely adds to the sense of growing chaos and increasing interactivity of the block.

Farah Najib’s story is timely and deeply relevant, both in its analyses of loneliness and lives lived disconnected, and in its dressing down of housing management and other groups who hold power of peoples’ lives but show no interest in supporting those same people. Despite never truly meeting them, these characters feel lived-in and familiar, not unlike neighbours many of us have encountered, or colleagues who we pay attention to only as much as we deem necessary, and moments in Najib’s script hold real weight, forcing her audience to pause and reflect on how harrowing much of what’s happening truly is. There is a rug pull moment near the very end of the hour and change we spend with these storytellers, a moment in which we are reminded of life’s harshness, and demanding that we reckon with how unjust things can be.

 Performed by three strong actors and guided with a sure hand by Jess Barton, Maggots succeeds primarily on the thoughtful, provocative writing of Farah Najib. Measured, moving, and genuinely troubling in places, Najib’s work left me in desperate need of a moment to decompress, and frankly that is exactly the response I hope for when these difficult topics are being explored – Maggots insists that we sit with what it has to say, and Farah Najib gives us plenty to sit with. Shocking both in its extremes and in the familiarity of its mundanities, this is a surprisingly bold, genuinely thought-provoking play, and one which I find myself still affected by some 20-hours after it began.

Maggots plays at the Bush Theatre Studio until February 28th

For tickets and information visit https://www.bushtheatre.co.uk/event/maggots/

Photos by  Ross Kernahan