Prospect Creek is billed as a horror play with a list of trigger warnings almost as long as its hour-long run time. Its Instagram, a collection of 70s-themed snapshots of its three actors, a series of unnaturally creepy pictures of nature, and its logo—a sole cabin on the edge of a creek—all giving little warning about the show. Perhaps I should’ve read the information on my ticket a little more carefully, as I went into Prospect Creek almost entirely blind and more innocent than when I left.
Prospect Creek is one of the most immersive shows I’ve seen in the Barron, as filling a theatre made of 16-foot-tall black curtains with a set seems like a near-impossible challenge. Instead, the impressive set featured wooden cabin boards, a made bed, a dining table, and a kitchen area, creating the illusion of the cabin, with the audience being trapped spectators. This was emphasised by Patterson’s choice to use the Barron theatre doors as the front door to the cabin.
I walked in, expecting the usual minimalist, black box fare that comes in-part with using the Barron as a performance space, and was astounded by the cabin before my eyes, something only emphasised by the pre-show: music plays through a radio, and the Widow tidies her simple cabin. She makes the bed, puts some food on the stove, and generally reorganises the space, it’s comfortable, highlighting her life before the show begins, before the Prospector comes along and brings death into her home.
Credit: Ellen Rowlett.
The show is chilling, quite literally, as the Barron, a theatre usually sticky with all the bodies generating an unbreathable amount of heat, for once, felt icy. I had made the walk to the theatre bundled up in layers upon layers of wool—a jumper, a scarf, earmuffs, a huge coat—and made the mistake of removing them before sitting down. The sound design, incredibly impressive, was continuous—a never-ending gale whipped around the heads of the audience—matched by the costuming, in which characters seem to layer never-ending fabrics, woollen jumpers, scarves, coats, anything to fight off the vicious cold that seems to get louder with every passing second. The only reprieve from the wind is the blisteringly cold sound of ice cracking (compared to knuckle-cracking in the show) which is an insidious noise which, for me, was like nails on a chalkboard.
The sound design, done by Annalise Roberts, was intricate—not only with the winter atmosphere, but also in the audible shift from music being in surround sound to coming from the radio on the stage. The songs that played throughout the show were very much to my taste, a collection of eclectic 70s tunes, which I—for the sake of my readers, who wish to be immersed in the world of Prospect Creek— have been given access to by the team.
The lighting worked perfectly in sync with the sound, as the lights shift between a stage wash for the normal cabin scenes, to a softer yellow green for flashbacks, and occasionally a red-blue half split for symbolic moments. Willa Meloth’s lighting is the key with which the audience judges what’s happening, as the script blurs time, morality, and, occasionally, reality.
Credit: Ellen Rowlett.
Rightfully emphasised in the marketing is the fact that this review is student written, ‘a new play by Sofia David’ is plastered on the Instagram, tickets, and on the Mermaid’s Instagram. David’s script is masterful, shocking, and made me ever-so-slightly concerned for her mental state in the best way possible (seriously, don’t go skiing with her). The fact that this script came from a student (with just as much stress and business as the rest of us), and was made in a workshop is so incredibly impressive, especially considering the research and soul that went into this script. Its dense, full of moving parts and interwoven relationships that occasionally veer towards the too-complex, but generally are easy to follow thanks to the aforementioned lighting.
The premise of the show is that three people are trapped in a cabin in rural Alaska for the winter, however, as pasts come to light, food runs scarce, and the Creek seems to taunt them, sanity starts to slip (as it should in every good Cabin Fever horror), and the characters lose themselves to the control of nature. Which, as any horror lover will tell you, is the perfect formula for a psychologically driven subliminal horror.
However, a show is not the script alone—god knows, as anyone who has suffered through a Year 6 production of Shakespeare knows— and it all comes down to the direction and performance from the cast. These characters, three archetypes named only in the marketing by their roles (widow, prospector, and kid), all have vastly different personalities. T
The widow is hardened by solitude, as icy as the Creek itself, calloused by the death of her husband and her past mistakes, a stark contrast to the joyful woman we see in flashbacks—presented through powerful monologues that pull the audience away from the depressing scenes of watching a modern day Doner Party, and offer slight reprieve to the audience from the harrowing scenes of a slow, painful death. This character, the quietest of the trio, is arguably the most difficult to pull off—to present stoicism without appearing flat, a fine line that Conway masterfully walks along, charming the audience with her reclusive character’s difficulty. The widow is the character you love in equal part and feel sorry for.
Windham-Hughes is the Prospector, the embodiment of capitalism and masculinity, obsessed with the potential mining profits of the Creek, and both verbally and physically abusive toward the Kid. I adored Windham-Hughes performance, as he excellently captivates the audience’s attention with his thick accent and strong movements. The character is written to be putting on a façade, which Windham-Hughes portrays perfectly, finally breaking during his monologue.
Credit: Ellen Rowlett.
I was slightly disappointed that the Prospector’s monologue wasn’t delivered by the character, purely because I’d have loved to see Windham-Hughes have that starring moment. However, his acting through reacting as Read takes on those lines made for a more powerful moment and allowed for his ability to shine whilst exploring the truth of the character. The Prospector feels guilty: guilt for not visiting his dying brother, guilt for his affair, guilt for his treatment of The Kid, his treatment of the Widow, and this guilt is thinly masked by the boisterous and dominant character the audience is initially introduced to. All these layers not only shown but emphasised by Windham-Hughes’ performance.
The Kid, the only character that caused me slight confusion (and not due to Read’s excellent portrayal), has an ambiguous age. Clearly interpreted by Patterson to be somewhere between 12-16, emphasised by the plaits and sports-tee worn by the child, whilst the script states that the Kid is half the age of the 40-something Prospector. Whilst this oversight seems to fall more on the script and the one line that threw me off, it did not especially impact the show by any means— and I simply chalked it up to directorial vision clashing with authorial interpretation.
Read’s kid is one struggling against their own religion, born Catholic, dying in a cabin full of staunch atheists. The Kid’s religious struggle is at the forefront of the character, presented beautifully by Read, who embraces all elements of the naivety, emotional complexities, and guilt at his abandonment of his home. Read takes on the Prospector’s monologue in an impressive showcase of range, as she artfully takes on the dominant personality of Windham-Hughes. Sometimes, actors get lost in the personalities of the characters, this is not an issue with any of this cast; they all left a wonderful mark on these figures, particularly for the show’s debut, and it’s going to be difficult for any future performance to top this.
These actors were, most importantly, all masterfully guided by the vision of Patterson. There are many iconic moments from the show, but most poignantly the ending—which multiple people have excitedly recounted to me— in which the Widow shines a torch around a pitch-black room. She scans the audience (whose eyes are only just adjusting to the sudden light change) before landing on the corpse of the Prospector, laid on the table, and the bloody of The Kid, who was eating his corpse.
It’s a gut-wrenching moment, a jumpscare—which isn’t often successful in live theatre, the only other show that has performed one so well (in my experience) being the Woman in Black in London—which was executed brilliantly—and a total change from the moral heart of the trio, to see this sweet child go from reading tales to cannibalism highlights both Read’s exceptional acting and also the work between the backstage team—the room is finally silent, as the audience hitches their breaths, totally dark, and the focus is entirely on this moment, the climax of the show.
Credit: Ellen Rowlett.
The final few moments encapsulate the reactions, the horror, and—where some shows would end on this shock—David explores fully the implications of such an act. The Prospector had been poisoned in what was intended to be a euthanisation of The Kid, and now Read’s Kid regrets not dying, and eats and eats in the hopes of dying. It does not work. Instead, the conclusion of the show is The Kid stripping down into undergarments (shorts and a vest) and running out into the winter, something foreshadowed by The Kid’s monologue, which is an excited discussion on hypothermia, and The Kid’s almost-death earlier in the show from the same thing.
The idea of being trapped in the wilderness has captured modern audiences’ attentions, from the mythology around the Doner Party to the show Yellowjackets on Hulu, and Patterson beautifully presents a descent into madness whilst facing the inevitability of your own death. David’s script is twisted, brilliant, and horrifying, truly proving that insanity and genius go hand in hand. If you had the misfortune of missing Prospect Creek, I’d recommend watching Yellowjackets, which follows a similar theme, or listening to the playlist and being thankful you are not slowly freezing to death in a rural cabin with no escape.
As a horror fanatic, all I can say is, this play encapsulated all the best elements of psychological horror, and even though I could guess what was coming (as it seemed inevitable) Patterson’s choice to jump-scare the audience with it, along with David’s focus on the aftermath created an ending that left everyone’s mouths agape. As soon as the (very bloody) bows were finished, the room erupted into chatter and theorising over what on earth just happened, one of the best experiences I’ve had during theatre in this town.
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