An epic family drama about the boundaries of love and devotion in the age of climate catastrophe is to tour the region, brought to the stage by an all-East Anglian creative team.
Albatross by Suffolk playwright Martha Loader and directed by Menagerie Theatre Company co-artistic director Patrick Morris is touring venues in Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk throughout April and May.
Loader is an associate artist of the New Wolsey Theatre in Ipswich and was commissioned by Menagerie to write Albatross after being on their young writers’ workshop.
She began writing it after interviewing female Antarctic researchers, and the fictional story is deeply informed by their lived experiences.
In the play, when Alice returns from a gruelling Antarctic odyssey, she finds that everything has changed. There’s been a flood, a funeral and a new romance. At 1:30am, her daughter Alba is sleeping. Her mother, Eve, has never been more awake. And Alice? Maybe the cracks she discovered in the Antarctic ice have followed her home.
Blending the everyday with the extraordinary and transporting the audience to the Antarctic without ever leaving the kitchen table, Albatross encounters mighty questions of motherhood, the explorer’s soul and how to be a hero in today’s world – diving deep into the ways in which the climate crisis can pull family ties apart.
Morris said: “Living and working in East Anglia you can’t ignore the effects of climate change, with sea levels rising and coastal erosion. Albatross doesn’t have a top-down approach though – it goes for the guts, weighing real choices that people have to make. Then thinking about what we owe to future and previous generations, Martha takes us on an emotional roller coaster – I don’t think there’s a more poignant play to see right now.”
- Albatross tour dates include: 28-29 April, Colchester Mercury Theatre; 7 May, Fisher Theatre, Bungay; 8 May, St George’s Theatre, Great Yarmouth; 9 May, UEA Drama Studio, Norwich; 12 May, Cambridge Junction; 14 May, The Cut, Halesworth; 15 May, Wells Maltings; 16 May, Sheringham Little Theatre; 19 May, New Wolsey, Ipswich; 20 May, Quay Theatre, Sudbury; 21 May, Seagull Theatre, Lowestoft; 22 May, Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds.
