| 17 August 2010
Set in a Victorian theatre and performed amidst the dark spaces of a shuttered Masonic Lodge, David Leddy's Sub Rosa is an atmospheric chiller that is blacker than the heart of Hunter, the unseen but powerful impresario that controls all its characters' lives. In this promenade performance, the audience is led from Universal Arts on George Street down to the Hill Street Theatre, otherwise known as the base of the world's oldest order of Masons. Leddy has skillfully weaved elements of the Lodge's interior design and history into the play, displaying his mastery of site-specific work.
Sub Rosa was originally performed at the Citizen's Theatre, Glasgow, and it would be interesting to see what changes have been made from that venue to this. Certainly Glasgow, with its rich history of music hall, would seem a more exact fit for this dark tale of rape, murder and misery behind the red velvet curtains. The CItz is a relatively new venue, however, while Hill Street Theatre practically breathes history (almost literally, as Leddy has filled the halls with the creepy sound of some vast beast slumbering, ready to awake and attack).
It seems a shame that at certain points the illusion falters - the audience is led through rooms filled with the everyday minutae of modern theatrical life - electric kettles, signs about keeping quiet backstage - which serve to shake the mood of horrified despair that many of the monologues by the extremely talented cast have helped to create. A few more black dropcloths to mask these spaces could really have helped in this regard.
Be warned, Sub Rosa is horror in its most truthful sense. There is some element of ghost story within it, but at the real heart of the piece is child abuse, the terrible things that actual human beings do to one another when they think they can get away with it, and the awful things people do to themselves to try to forget what was done to them. It is gruesome, and awful, and unrelenting. It is also exceptionally well-written and acted, and a fine, absorbing piece that insinuates itself into the very fabric of the building where it is performed, to the extent that I feel as though won't be able to pass by the place again without feeling physically sick.
Those with a strong stomach are advised to give this fascinating work a try - miss it and you'll never see it in this form again, thanks to the special nature of site-specific theatre.
Hill Street Theatre, 5-30 Aug (not 10, 17, 24), times vary
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