The Guardian | 30.04.22 | SATURDAY | 61retorts. “Modern life. Life is good.”
There is nothing here to make you
want to head to the docks and sign up
for this work. “It’s my idea of hell, to be
stuck in that situation for weeks on
end. You’ve got characters that literally
can’t escape each other. One of the big
problems for a dramatist is, when your
characters are in confl ict, how to keep
them together, to keep on telling the
story. The great thing about a ship is
that they can’t go anywhere else.”
Moss did not intend to write a
thriller, and for a while she was a bit
hesitant about allowing herself to
describe her play as one. “It’s like
saying you’ve written a comedy,” she
says, pointing out that it feels a bit
presumptuous to assume that the
writing will achieve that eff ect. But
the script has psychological tension,
loneliness, power struggles, fear,
violence and a constant threat of
pirates, and it easily merits the
description. “I’ve started describing it
as a feminist thriller,” she says with
a laugh. “I’m owning it now.”
Corrina, Corrina, a Headlong and
Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse
co-production, opens at the Everyman
theatre, Liverpool, 17 May.‘I didn’t speak to
one female seafarer
who hadn’t been
directly aff ected by
sexual violence’
All at sea (Left,
clockwise from top)
David Crellin, Laura
Elsworthy, James
Bradwell and MartinSarreal; (below,
pictured clockwise)
Sarreal; playwright
Chloë Moss; and
Elsworthy as CorrinaCorrina tells fellow crew members, in
explanation of her own rising fury.
Moss’s play is, in part, the story
of women who are “constantly
having their own anger ignored,
suppressed or dampened”. She
explains : “Corrina begins by trying to
assimilate, adopting a kind of
masculinity and matching the men,
trying to show that she has an armour.
Later, it comes full circle as she takes
things into her own hands to get
justice. It’s really about the character
tapping into her own anger.”
The play is beautifully written and
occasionally unexpectedly funny,
despite the creeping tension. The role
of the cargo ship is shown to be as
fascinating as it is bizarre – slowly
transporting shipments of random
objects across the world, everything
from containers carrying tens of
thousands of plastic talking-and-
singing dolls to yoga mats and
smuggled guns. The sailors argue
about the importance or pointlessness
of their work. One sailor is accused of
buying “things he doesn’t need with
the money he gets from shipping the
things nobody else needs all across the
world”. “It’s called life, my friend,” hean equal opportunities campaign,
designed to increase the proportion
of women working in the industry.
When Corrina tries to report abuse,
a similar three-way encounter is set
up by her captain, a man who thinks
he is progressive on matters of
equality. It does not go well. “I’m not
suggesting for a moment that people
shouldn’t be held accountable, but my
priority is ensuring that we always
move forward,” the captain says,
cheerfully initiating an encounter
between the attacker and his victim.
“The best way to move forwards,
I’m sure, working and living in such
close proximity, is to discuss it
openly in a safe space.”
Moss has previously written plays
for the Clean Break theatre company ,
which mostly focuses on prison
themes, and her work has taken her
frequently into the men’s prison
estate, so she understands the
feeling of going into an all-male
environment. “You go into that space
as a woman, you feel something in the
air; it’s very palpable.”
Woven into the drama is the
Homeric legend of Scylla , a female sea
monster with six heads and a tail. InMoss’s account, Scylla has been made
into monster and banished to the
bottom of the sea by a controlling
suitor. “After a few thousand years of
this, she started to get angry, so she
swam back up to the surface and went
on a rampage, swallowing men on
BRIAN ROBERTS boats like there’s no tomorrow,”