Review: The Wasp (Southwark Playhouse Borough)

Review by Daz Gale

⭐️⭐️

A major theme in Morgan Lloyd Malcolm’s dark thriller The Wasp is the past returning to haunt you, so it feels fitting that this is exactly what this play is doing. Returning to London as part of Greenwich Theatre Productions’ inaugural season, it is spending the month at Southwark Playhouse Borough before a transfer to Greenwich in September. Promising tension and mystery, there was a great buzz about this story both from its past incarnation and its promising return, but would it end up having a sting in the tail?

First seen on stage in 2015 and adapted into a 2024 film, The Wasp follows Heather and Carla, two women who went to school together but haven’t seen each other since. As their lives have splintered into very different paths, their reunion proves initially awkward as their conflicting lives and personalities make for an unnatural meeting. That is ramped up a gear when Heather makes Carla an unexpected offer, promising a lot of money in return for what she is asking. What transpires is a tale full of twists and turns, where true motives are teased, and demons from the past have a way of catching up with them.

Morgan Lloyd Malcolm has proven time and time again what a gifted writer she is, with the play she produced after The Wasp, Emilia , winning multiple Olivier Awards. Malcolm’s talent for writing is never in question, and The Wasp is another fine example of that, filling itself with intrigue and promise. The very different nature of both women in the story leads to some fantastic contrasts that Malcolm relishes the opportunity to explore, filling the story with a shifting tone, veering from moments of comedy to a gradually darker premise that proves more and more unsettling.

The issue is that this production makes some unfathomable choices that squander all of that potential and seem to be at odds with the bones of Malcolm’s original. There are moments of brilliance to be found in James Haddrell’s direction, but these are often muddled with some ideas and decisions that undermine the talents of all involved in this production. Characters rewinding to repeat their previous scene is overused and ends up being annoying, slowing the pace of the production considerably. What should have been a pacey one-act show has been padded out and slowed down to include an interval, reducing all of the necessary tension and leading to an occasionally tedious watch. The transition scenes prove similarly tricky, with one pivotal moment executed in a painfully slow fashion that left my mind wandering despite the seemingly unsettling events unfolding in front of the rather intimate ‘Little’ space at Southwark Playhouse Borough.

Performed as a two-hander, the two clearly talented performers each have moments to shine during the play, but seem to have been limited by confused choices and unclear instructions. This means dialogue can prove stifled, and it can all feel extremely unnatural, lessening the believability that is crucial to the themes of this dark and twisty show landing. Serin Ibrahim dominates the early portion of the play as the brassy Carla, but seems to lose the characterisation later on when the power dynamic shifts somewhat. On the other hand, Cassandra Hercules delivers most of the first act as Heather in an oddly stilted fashion that lacks any sense of humanity, though it becomes clear this is more to do with the direction than her own abilities, as demonstrated when her character has an extreme pivot in the second act, allowing Hercules to deliver her strengths as a performer, though this comes at the cost of Ibrahim sinking into the background.

Where Malcolm’s story fills itself with a shifting tone, Haddrell never seems to make sense of what that tone is and how best to convey it. A confusing bit early on was met with rapturous laughter from the audience, but delivered in such a way that made it unclear if that was the right response. This was a theme that repeated throughout, with audience members laughing at bits that didn’t feel funny, and staying mute at others that felt as if they should have been played for laughs. A fourth wall break near the climax of the show felt similarly off, at odds with the rest of the play and executed in such a clumsy way that proved jarring.

It is a frustrating watch, as all the tools are there to land a solid production, but there seem to be conflicting ideas at play and visions that don’t marry together, leading to a confused take on Malcolm’s story. The payoff at the end didn’t feel as slick as it ought to be, either, with a key moment missing the timing, and ending the evening on an underwhelming note in what should have been a gut-punch moment.

Though I had never seen a production of The Wasp before, reading up about what it was like in its previous iterations and my own love of Morgan Lloyd Malcolm’s writing led me to believe that my lack of enjoyment didn’t rest with the story itself, but rather was caused by this specific production. Confused and under-baked direction led to some perplexing choices that slowed the pace and destroyed any momentum or goodwill the story had built up. In the show, the characters speak of a wasp whose sting caused three minutes of agonising pain before everything went back to normal. While I wouldn’t call the two hours spent here agonising pain, I was left longing to feel anything - even a sting. Where your mind may forget you ever were stung shortly after it happened, I felt the same watching this. A sadly undeveloped production that failed to meet its obvious potential.

The Wasp plays at Southwark Playhouse Borough until 30th May. Tickets from https://southwarkplayhouse.co.uk/productions/the-wasp/

Photos by Ross Kernahan