Zagazig | Curtain World

Zagazig is fantastical cornucopia that contains a large swathe of the Egyptian pantheon, is unapologetically sex-worker & body positive, takes a long hard look and deeply held embrace of the inner child, and dresses it all up with a suite of surreal backdrops and impossible scene changes.

All images: Jade Ellis

I enjoyed the genderfluid casting, it was a breath of fresh air. After all, like in much performance and film, when you are already dealing with retelling of myth and imaginary lands, there is really no reason for a monogamous cast. Bodies of different sizes. Faces of different colours. Not as talking points, as token gestures or ticks of approval. Just a nod to the fact that all sorts of bodies actually can play all sorts of roles, at all times but especially when the characters are 90% based in mythology and would in fact be absolutely fine if they were cartoons or caricatures. All sorts of bodies are host to incredible performers. The best person for the job is the person that feels the role. The casting added to the sense of myth and fantasy made real. There is no normativity in a dream world. Soon, we will be able to leave comments of these out of reviews, soon.

The performance was inconsistent, timing ran hot and cold and fast and slow, the actual performances varied wildly in their experience from emerging to professional, the scene changes were erratic in pace and efficiency, and yet… the pure scope of the dream, the ridiculous and excessive vision was pure joy to behold. This play was produced in a DIY warehouse in West End but it was composed in a mind that saw it on the moving wooden backdrops of London’s Globe Theatre circa 1650, or the fantastical handbuilt sets of early cinematic masterpieces. It deserved huge swinging backdrops that descended from the heavens and a chorus of thousands. For us in the audience we had to fill in those gaps ourselves but I could see them in my minds eye.

There are fantastic props, with surreal colouring, delicious textures, deliberately wonky fixtures and a level of ridiculousness that is chortle worthy and soothes my mass produced and gentrified soul. In addition to this a projected moon, sings live and lovely, featuring the stunning voice of the equally stunning moon-face of Aurora Liddle-Christie. Twice as the scene changes to the cabaret club, and an entire fourpiece band sets up to play one number and one number only. Doors and backdrops float across the stage, giant potplants and flies come to life, a ghost serves large and clunky cups of tea, we are sent on wildly tangential plot lines with monologues that feel like they could be nonsense, some myth-making bullshit straight from the tradition of tall tales in outback pubs, or feel like they could be word for word some horrid ancient torture made fleshy and contemporary, or an unnecessarily lewd side quest. Is it connected? Who knows? Who cares? But of course it is, here in the ancient city of Zagazig this is Exactly As It Was and Always Will Be.

I am a fan of the ibis (the actual bird, you know), and despair at its current denigrated local status of somewhat cherished but mostly mocked ‘bin chicken’. I was happy to see the Ibis back in position as Thoth, god of equilibrium, god of knowledge and presented here as narrator, in a fantastic headpiece by designer Asia. Scribe of the gods, Thot bears witness to the story as it unfolds, the protagonists’ complex emotional journey and the eventual emancipation and the apocalyptic fight between Apep and the sun.

There are other lofty thoughts, woven into the nonsense. Would nothingness be a relief after the noise and chaos of life. The family you choose are bound to you just as terribly as the ones you are born unto. You can trust everyone and no one and so it will always be. You can trust people to be themselves always and every time. The terrible choices you must make when you journey all the way inside.

Eli Free shone in the lead role as the capricious Honey, and was beautifully complemented by Luke Diamond as Kitty. The cast were delightful in their full ensemble and weirdness and I can’t wait to see the second season of this, wherever it may be. Huge kudos to set designers Clo Love and Seren Wagstaff for their exquisite textures and vision. Esther Dougherty has a huge and ridiculous brain with lots of wild thoughts and I look forward to eating more of their ambitious and delicious productions in the years to come. Zagazig is a beautiful daydream made manifest, I hope it rises again and again, and for all that it will likely get tighter and have better funding in the future, and possible more rehearsals, actual stage hands, and all that other periphery, this beautiful cacophony of original handmade nonsense will always have a soft spot in my heart.