The Stage

The Oikos Project

Published Wednesday 1 September 2010 at 12:52 by Barbara Lewis

There are many reasons to visit the Jellyfish Theatre - so-called because of the creature’s need for a balanced ecosystem to survive.

Sadly, the quality of its drama is not yet among them.

Designed by Berlin-based architects/artists Kobberling and Kaltwasser, Britain’s first fully-functioning theatre made from recycled and reclaimed materials is a joy.

Sited in a Southwark playground, it is a community project par excellence that has brought together 96 volunteers and harnessed the energy of hundreds of local schoolchildren, who have transformed water cooler bottles into decorative art.

So much creativity is ill-matched with a flat, simplistic play.

Oikos is the root word of economy and ecology - ergo the action centres on the barrenness of financial success and the River Thames bursting its banks, recalling an earlier flooding of India’s Ganges.

Neil d’Souza as city banker Salil, Amy Dawson as his pirouetting daughter Lily, and Dido Miles in the role of his bag lady of a wife Assana give whole-hearted performances. They fail, however, to redeem the thin material and their paralysis in the face of a rising tide is merely painful.

The audience could be forgiven for wishing to place the play in the recycling bin and seeking to preserve the delightful but temporary Jellyfish Theatre for posterity.

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