What would you say to your high school bully if you had the chance? What would you do to them if you had them alone in a room?
British playwright and screenwriter Morgan Lloyd Malcom’s The Wasp has a very brief synopsis: “an electric thriller that asks how far beyond the playground we carry our childhood experiences and to what lengths some people are willing to go in order to come to terms with them”. And it’s true, it buzzes with electric twists and turns, and a sting in the tail you’ll never see coming.
Cara Whitehouse plays Heather; a posh, high-waisted jeans-wearing, Guardian-reading, and quite-well-off leftie. Her snooty demeanour and accent is a delight, especially in contrast with Jessica Bell’s Carla, who wears giant gold hoops, a bum bag, an Adidas t-shirt and, despite her round pregnant belly, can’t give up smoking. Bell’s comic timing is fantastic, and there’s particular moments, like when she’s swishing around heavily-sugared tea in her mouth after a big slurp, that make her character endearingly realistic. Bell and Whitehouse’s chemistry is superb, and even when silent Bell is brimming with a well-earned indignation.
The pair meet in a café after twenty years apart. Heather spills her guts to Carla about her cheating husband, and then asks her for help with a revenge plot against him. She makes Carla an offer she can’t refuse, and the stakes only get higher from there. Becks Blake’s direction, in tandem with Malcom’s words, weaves a complex web that never lets up on the tension. Simple additions from Blake add to the text in subtly brilliant ways; Carla stands up to reveal something after sitting for a long time, the two characters drag their chairs closer in perfect synchronisation to hatch their plan. Sound design by Johnny Yang rumbles underneath dialogue, and takes over between scenes with angsty tunes like Ramases and Selket’s ‘Screw You’.
Axel Hinkley’s production design furthers the odd-couple dynamic between Carla and Heather on a visual level, right down to Heather’s sparkling gold earrings and “no show socks”. The set is achingly middle-class, with two small lounge chairs and pictures of tarantula hawk wasps and other insects tastefully, menacingly, arranged on the wall.
Some aspects of the writing start to pile up and get ever so close to toppling into “too much” territory – in the sense that it uses sex work as an arguably unnecessary moral dilemma, and aspects of Carla’s trauma are more plot device than genuine character trait – but this doesn’t stop the characters from finding a dark common ground that hits you in the pit of your stomach, and a complexity that builds up to a genuinely gasp-worthy climax. There’s also a brooding examination of class and the ways that trauma takes hold in different people that makes this play more than just an exciting “thriller”.
The Wasp asks us if it’s really possible to choose kindness over violence, and flips the “bully revenge plot” on its head by showing us a few reasons why someone might learn to be the way that they are. What do we do to perpetuate violence? What can we really ever say if we continue to participate? What lengths would you go to for “justice”? With some great performances and ever-building tension, you’ll have the good kind of headache from concentrating too hard on this play.
If you need any more incentive to get out to see this show, presented by Akimbo + Co in association with Bakehouse Theatre Co, it also marks the end of an era. The Wasp is the final play to be staged in the original location of Kings Cross Theatre, located five floors up in the Kings Cross Hotel. But it’s not curtains for KXT just yet, the theatre is officially moving to Broadway (Ultimo), baby!
The Wasp is playing at Kings Cross Theatre (Kings Cross Hotel location) until December 17, 2022. The play runs for 90 minutes with no interval. Get your tickets here.