Worms Review – A Tragic Story of an Undetected Death Over a Year Ago | stage

TThe opening quote of Farah Najeeb’s drama states that “Living well and dying well is a societal affair.” What are the implications for society when a woman lies dead in her home for over a year undetected? All the signs are there, from the stench slowly seeping down the hallway to the worms popping up in her neighbors’ homes.

Naguib’s play raised questions related to responsibility and guilt, both at the individual and systemic levels. The sad central scenario is not as far-fetched as it may seem: the deceased, Shirley, is fictional but the play is inspired by the only real deaths of several of the women mentioned at the beginning of the text, including Sheila Silliwan who remained dead for more than two years before she was discovered.

Three storytellers (Marcia Leckey, Sam Baker-Jones, Safiya Iyengar) describe the events leading up to Shirley’s discovery from the perspective of her neighbors – a single mother, a cleaner, and a middle-aged widower and his grieving daughter among them. The drama repeatedly emphasizes its artifice (“We are actors, that’s what actors tell us”). But there is an intimacy and richness in the stories they tell, with a masterful creation of interior life even though the third-person narration should technically distance us.

In a production directed by Jess Barton, spotlight is used to create focus and stillness (lighting design by Peter Small), dramatic stories are integrated into the present and humor is interwoven into the story of death and desolation. Caitlin Mawhinney’s set design, with the beauty of dried flowers on top, even as we are told of worms and skeletal remains, is ridiculous.

But there is an ambiguity in the play about larger systemic failures that lacks the forensic detail needed to subvert them. The push and pull between the human need for connection versus urban isolation is reminiscent of Alexander Zeldin’s Beyond Caring and Kay Tempest’s Let Them Eat the Mess, but the play does not connect the personal and political halves with as much stringency. The central arch around the worms seems to build a surreal horror of insect invasion, but it is never more than a backdrop.

It has an anti-climatic effect, as it brews the darkness with a benign tone of goodness and warmth. Naguib has a talent for drawing you into her world, even if she is pulling his punches in it.