The real life story of a queer Dutch sailor made cast away for sodomy.
Marooned on a deserted island in the 1700s, one Dutch sailor looks back on his past and how he got there. “Ascension”, a new play written by Dan Hazelwood and directed by Max Lindsay at the Bedlam Theatre at Edinburgh Fringe, is an adaptation of the real life diary that Leendert Hasenbosch kept as he slowly died of starvation on his own, punished for the crime of sodomy.
Hazelwood himself stars as Leendert Hasenbosch, abbreviated to Lee, and begins the play with an assurance that although his death may be, historically, the most interesting part of his tale, it is the story of his life that he is here to tell. For the most part this is a one man show, as Hazelwood commands the stage, deftly flitting between each numbered day of his exile to his upbringing in Holland and eventual enlistment in the military in Batavia, that day’s Jakarta.
A welcome inclusion is Conor Mainwaring’s introduction as Lee’s love interest, meeting in Batavia and soon falling in love despite the taboo of the time. Having personally never heard of the story of Leendert Hasenbosch, I was pleased to see the realisation of this forgotten tale in the form that “Ascension” took. The pair’s chemistry was genuinely heart-felt and endearing and a sure fire way to capture the audience’s empathy to the cold reality of the situation.
At times the play moved into unexpected moments of surrealism, with modern pop music, choreographed dances and a lecture on how to not die of hydration. These elements were fun, but felt at odds with the identity of the main story. I would’ve loved to see both the historical setting and the surrealist components further integrated into the storytelling of the play.
“Ascension” is an important play that sheds light on a forgotten story that is truly remarkable.