Jake Mace
Content Warning: Spoilers
You might be forgiven that the title of this play is one-note – in fact I naively thought the same walking into The Glitch on a Monday evening. In my head, this was to be a play about a wristwatch and the relationship between the two people that interact with it. How wonderful it is to be so gleefully deceived.
‘The Watch’, as it turns out, can also be in reference to an archaic medieval habit of sleeping in two shifts – one in the evening, and one early in the morning, allowing a period of unusual, lucid wakefulness in those surreal morning twilight hours between three and seven. When freshly out young Queer barista Hannah goes to have the wristwatch she inherited from her grandfather fixed, she meets an aloof, mysterious and attractive watchmaker named Zoe. Their sapphic relationship twists and turns around themes of mental health, intergenerational trauma, queer visibility and intimacy.
Hannah struggles to reconcile her complicated family life back in Ireland with the accepting friends she’s made in London, the hedonistic nights out, and her own mental health struggles. After a frivolous hook-up with one of her male customers, Hannah’s insomnia leaves her contemplating everything – her queerness, her wellness, her family. On her wrist, the watch given to her by her grandfather after he passed away, but something is wrong, it is ticking inconsistently and sending her into overdrive. When the first mysterious watchmakers shop opens at 6am, she finds herself at the door, and sets into motion a chain of magical, euphoric, and complicated events.
Waldron’s writing treads an imaginary tightrope between our world and a surreal magical realism. Until very late in the piece we’re never quite sure of Zoe’s secrets; she is presented as a character with near-supernatural sleeping abilities and an aura that Hannah really struggles to get a handle on in the early days. Insomnia-suffering Hannah, in reflection, seems so sure of herself that she refuses to reach out for help with her mental wellbeing, and this dialectic quickly divulges into a careful, sensitive, and eloquently depicted back-and-forth over how relationships can heal us, test us, provoke us to be better (or at least, clearer) versions of ourselves.
This is mixed in with two wider themes that ripple their way through the narrative. Hannah rarely visits home after a series of family traumas regarding her queer identity, and we see her begin to understand that she shouldn’t need to feel guilty for this series of events through her relationship with Zoe. Erstwhile, Zoe is trying her best to forgo a lot of the modern vices – technology, namely, and how it paralyses us in moments where we need a quick fix for our problems – and we see that tension unpacked in their relationship as we gradually begin to learn more about Zoe’s background and personal philosophies.
The script is concise, and the hour flies by. The moments of intimacy between the pair ring with a passionate, sensuous hum that you feel long after you walk out the room. All the while, Hannah is presented as a firecracker personality that keeps us engaged with a hundred-and-one jokes, pop culture references, and a yearning to reach out and connect with those around her, us as audience members included. Sometimes the scenes have a little touch of a samey feeling, and the script hovers a little too closely on some details with only a tantalisingly small crossover into this surreal magical world we’re hinted exists beyond.
The Watch chooses to keep some of its’ secrets and twists close to its chest, while letting others out a little too soon, and we don’t arrive at the central thrust of the piece until quite late in the narrative. That discussion of sleep cycles and their mystic power to our wellbeing arrives too late for us to see it cut deeply onto either of the characters’ psyches. While this does leave you wanting more it also makes you question the value of some of the more light scenes earlier in the narrative arc to fleshing out this story to its deepest extent.
Ciana Howlin’s performance as Hannah is absolutely electric, and totally commanding. We see much of the piece through her lens, and her ability to shift through characters we don’t see portrayed with other actors is absolutely seamless. Her portrayal of Hannah is sensitive and introspective, with intention behind every word, a whip-smart wit behind every quip, and a relatable conception of her frustrations and jubilations with the modern world.
Kate Crisp’s Zoe flits from mysterious otherworldly lover into a grounded, sensible lover who seeks for Hannah to feel better in her own skin, to own her identity, to find comfort in the pauses and breaths in between in the same way she has. Her aloof presentation intrigues, and her compassion for her lover bleeds through her physicality. It’s a joy to look at Crisp respond in character to Hannah’s remarks, even when perched on the sides of the stage. Though we do mostly see her through Hannah’s eyes, at the end we get a gripping last-minute vision of how she sees the world, and I’d have liked to see this developed further.
Merle Wheldon’s tight yet fluid direction and Jack Hathaway’s fabulously immersive and engrossing lighting design combine to create a real visual identity for the show. As Hannah scrolls Tinder bars of light flicker and spark, while we’re treated to moments of ritualistic-feeling calm in candlelit surrounds in Zoe’s bedroom. Four pillars are each decked out as the coffee shop, watchmakers, wine bar for first dates, and bus stop for the ride home, and our duo dip between them with ease. It’s a totally vivid and well-realised visual identity accompanying powerful performances.
Isabella Waldron debuts this new script with a joyfully inventive, intimate, and passionately performed production running this week only in Waterloo. A team of highly passionate and talented creatives have put together something really visually and emotively special for this story’s fledgling first run.
Recommended Drink: Grab an Espresso Martini and head to the dancefloor for that ‘Espresso Martini Coke look’ kinda fun that Hannah talks about.
You can catch The Watch at The Glitch, Waterloo, Central London every day until Monday 9th June at 19:00 (60mins). Tickets are available through the Venue’s Online Box Office.
Image Credit: Jake Bush
Elisabeth Flett
Freddie Haberfellner
