Sea Creatures

by Cordelia Lynn

In a cottage by the sea, four women live in a house made for five. Meals are prepared, stories are shared and the waves break on the shore. When only one of their two expected guests arrives for the summer, life is about to change for all of them...
Cordelia Lynn's Sea Creatures is a haunting play about grief, loss and the power of storytelling. It opened at Hampstead Theatre, London, in March 2023, directed by James Macdonald.

100 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 30, 2023

Reviews

[Doug · Rating 4 out of 5]

This has got to be one of the strangest plays I have ever read - and somewhat (intentionally?) incomprehensible; it makes the more unfathomable late plays by Caryl Churchill look like child's play. There's a touch of Pinter here, but as the reviews make clear, Lynn is onto a whole other level - and as much as I was frustrated to try to figure out what was happening and why - I was also mesmerized.

I usually am perturbed when a playwright includes almost impossible to realize stage directions - here, there is a stampede of lobsters coming through a door at one point, and at another, a flock of sea birds crash into a window. But here, I more or less went along with it. Would have loved to have seen the recent premiere production in London.

PS: if the cover looks familiar, it was also used for the recent Booker nominated In Ascension.

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/202...
https://www.broadwayworld.com/westend...
https://www.thestage.co.uk/reviews/se...
https://www.londontheatre1.com/review...
https://theatre.revstan.com/2023/04/r...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuEQo...

[Sam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beguiling and lyric in language and character, but unusual and murky in plot. 3.5.