Theatre Review: Djupid (The Deep)

Published on Wednesday 15 April 2009 19:41

AT Oran Mor, Icelandic writer Jon Atli Jonasson – with director and translator Graeme Maley, and star actor Liam Brennan, in superb form – offer a simple, compelling and unforgettable confrontation with the last things of life and death.

Djupid (The Deep) is a 40-minute monologue for a young fisherman who, in the midst of an unresolved life, finds his ship sinking under him, and nothing ahead but a probable icy death. Jonasson's award-winning play moves brilliantly from the absurdity of life to the pain of losing it, from the trivial to the most profound. And coming barely more than a week after the latest North Sea disaster, the play also reminds us of the knowledge of loss that binds together all the peoples of the seagoing north; the enduring sense that, in the end, life's last moments may have to be lived alone in cold and dark, with no witness or audience at all, except the god in which so few of us still believe.

&149Djupid (The Deep) is at Oran Mor, Glasgow, until 18 April, then on tour to Aberdeen and Dundee, from 27-30 April.