How do you represent Grenfell? Its blackened carcass is burned on London’s collective memory – iconic in the worst sense of the word. It is still in sight, yet, The Grenfell Project suggests, too quickly out of mind.
Conceptually, this is a production Mrs May, and, indeed, all of us, should be forced to see.
As a piece of verbatim theatre, it recreates the fire and its aftermath from the words of the victims, firefighters and politicians involved. Its rawness renders it a respectful treatment of the disaster – a transmission which gifts the victims a voice.
The atmosphere is the play’s strength; the audience enters to recordings of JME and Grenfell-champion Stormzy’s anthems playing, taking seats among the Adidas-clad actors.
On one wall hangs a painting of the burnt tower, plastered with the words ‘Eye-sore. The Final Straw’, by survivor Damel Carayol. Throughout, this reminds us of the representational nature of art, just as the production itself is made up of different experiences of the 2017 disaster.
Directed by 22-year-old Eleanor Crouch, and played above a pub on Upper Street, this was never going to be a shiny-slick production. Instead, it is bare-boned – almost prop-less – and centres on voices.
The young cast ramps up their energy as they portray the anguish of Grenfell. From their seats in the audience and look us in the eye asking, pleading, and blaming: why have we forgotten the fire?
The hour-long episodic play is interspersed with moving poetry, soundbites from victims, video, and dance.
Light is used well, particularly during a retelling of the fire itself. We sit in a blackout as disembodied voices haunt us: we hear of the family who could not make it out of the burning building, turning on the TV to calm their kids…
After we are taken through the fire, the response and the inquiry, we are ultimately reminded that the injustice seen in the case of Grenfell continues today.
As the audience is asked to write on a memorial wall, the play becomes more social mission than art – given the reality of the Grenfell Tower fire, perhaps it couldn’t be any other way.
The Grenfell Project is performing at The Hope Theatre, Upper Street from 12 – 30 March 2019. The cost is £15/12.
