A gritty, unedited view of the sexism and trials faced by women on deck
Trigger warning: Sexual assault, racism, suicide
Corrina, Corrina is the modern tale of a woman working onboard a ship. We watch as Corrina (Laura Elsworthy) tries to make her way in this man’s world by putting on a brave face and attempting to ignore and squash any problems that arise due to her sex. This becomes increasingly difficult to achieve as the play progresses. We see her continually wronged by many men from her father to officers and even her friend in the deck crew, Angelo (James Bradwell). We also witness her character progress, with Corrina becoming empowered as she goes from trying to hide her feminine characteristics to embracing them.
The play has a relatively simple plot and very small cast, comprising of only six members. This allows the production to focus on the individual relationships between characters and the mundane interactions and power dynamics onboard a ship. This reveals the small and big things that make life on-deck for women, and in this case, also the workers from the Philippines, very difficult . The simple plot allows large, deep themes such as sexual harassment, racism, feminism , suicide and superstition to be addressed.
The play starts with Corrina getting the job and the captain claiming to be progressive in hiring her, and we start to see her interact and befriend the deck crew : Angelo, Rizal and Rafael, quickly becoming particularly close to Angelo. The first half of the play is more lighthearted with brief bursts of comedy as characters get to know each other. It then starts to take a darker turn when we are introduced to the other deck officer: Will (Mike Noble). Corrina met Will previously in training and has since purposefully lost contact with after an incident last summer.
Interactions between Will and Corinna are strained from the start with awkward jokes and references to last summer from Will. As the play develops, Will becomes more persistent in his pursuit of Corrina and displays erratic behaviour. He escalates his behaviour, lying at one point to get her alone in a room with him. During this intense scene we finally discover what happened last summer as Corrina reveals that anything that had happened between them was unconsensual. Will responds by positioning himself as “the victim” in the scenario and later lies to the captain when Corrina tries to make a complaint against him. Mike Noble does an excellent job of embodying this horrible character, and I found myself reminding myself he was an actor in order to prevent myself from hating him. At the conclusion of the play we see Corrina stand up to Will empowering both herself and the audience.
Throughout the play I was impressed by the use of the space and set to create different scenes. Of particular note, and poignance, was the projection of roiling water to portray the turbulence in Corrina’s head as she faced the events of last summer.
Overall, this play was a moving piece that managed to capture the raw grittiness of life on board.