Three desperate whalers come face to face with a ghostly figure promising salvation, or is it just their scurvy-riddled brains playing tricks on them, in this neatly formed and darkly funny new work from Daisy Hall.
Aboard the shabby eighteenth-century trawler, a gradually freezing to death Babben (Justin Edwards), Gorey (Adam Rojko Vega), and Sam (Abdul Jalloh) are marooned in the northern Atlantic. Their boat, the Dogstar, is stuck in the ice, and with their shipmates dying around them, and their alcoholic Captain locked away in a depressive stupor, the trio appear stuck, having failed to make any significant catches on their whale hunt, and with malnutrition setting in. Yet all is not so bleak for the three when an apparition of the ship’s benefactor, a Mr M Carmichael, suddenly appears in front of them, guiding the desperate men to their rescue or, perhaps, unknowingly to the men, to their final port.
A new premiere from writer Daisy Hall, Dogstar is a work that feels immediately authentic in the layering of the characters’ interactions and the conflicts and connections between them. It is a play about hope and survival, but it also touches upon masculinity and male bonds, especially the notion of father-son relationships and paternal figures. Hall’s work leans into, but does not linger on, the horror of the deaths and decay of the men stranded at sea, while the acknowledgement of the whales ‘running out’, an unfathomable concept for these eighteenth-century men, gently aligns Dogstar with conversations about the climate crisis and man’s longstanding, destructive relationship with nature.
Edwards’s ageing whaler Babben, limping yet poised, carries the weight of an experienced whaler with a deft sense of duty in this engaging performance. Edwards’s comic timing is utilised well here, especially when Jalloh’s Sam fears the worst, yet this is blended nicely with a strong sense of paternal responsibility as Babben considers the sacrifices he may need to make to spare his shipmates. This is neatly matched by Adam Rojko Vega’s sly and at times defiant Gorey, whose desperation to survive is palpable, and whose longstanding relationship with Babben builds to a powerful climax between the pair.
Meanwhile, Jalloh’s rules-stickler Sam is initially great fun, a good foil to Gorey, horrified by the latter’s use of the ship’s deck for a small fire, and evidently still scarred by the ship’s crew’s treatment of him, as well as his first whale kill. It is through Sam that the focus on the mysterious vision is channelled, with Jalloh deft in crafting a character so seemingly healthy and assured before eroding gradually into one rapt with both psychological and physical illness.
Indeed, it is the ambiguity of the situation for all three men that Hall crafts so securely here. Amid the sharply written comedy and intimate conversations between the men, the mercurial establishment of what the men did, or did not, see, and how it resolves for them is absorbing. The men are at a point of stasis, trapped literally and metaphorically by their stranded vessel, yet the play rarely falters, leaning on lighter moments to pull the narrative forward before managing a poignant end with great sensitivity.
Dogstar’s static nature might not be for everyone, but the play’s universal comment on life, aspirations, and human connections is recognisable. The screams of ailing shipmates blend with the noises of whales, as the end of the world nears for a trio standing at the edge of it. Whether or not the supernatural vision is real remains unclear, but what is immensely vivid is the sense of survival and bond that pulls the three together in this acutely haunting ghost tale.
