The Stage

Zero Degrees and Drifting

Published Wednesday 10 November 2004 at 12:10 by Jenny Ryan

An English seaside town literally crumbling into the sea is the setting for Unlimited Theatre’s take on love, loss and holding on.

The action of Zero Degrees and Drifting unfolds to the soundtrack of missing person appeals and eclectic tunes from Dylan to T’Pau, broadcast by an ever present pirate DJ in a crow’s nest above the stage. The curator of a bizarre local museum desperately attempts to rescue her exhibits as the condemned building disintegrates over the cliff edge.

Meanwhile, a mysterious and silent stranger is washed up on the shore and is taken into the home of Marianne and Alan. As a creative collective, Unlimited have obviously put much thought into all aspects of Zero Degrees. Design, sound, words and movement are all part of the production jigsaw and fit together perfectly. Even the mute stranger has been carefully fleshed out as a character through the physicality of Theron U. Schmidt.

Slightly grating was unnecessary use of Christ imagery around the stranger which seemed out of place. However, a potential irritant - the central couple speaking in the third person - in fact became a positive. Not only did it introduce the relationship effectively, it was put to stunning use by Sarah Belcher and Nathan Rimell in their climactic confrontation scene.

The counterpoint provided by Chris Thorpe as DJ and Elizabeth Besbrode as the curator is also excellently balanced, each giving some darkly comic relief without detracting from the tension of the main love story.