‘Bin Juice’ directed by Anastasia Bruce-Jones is playing in The Cavern at The Vaults until the 15th March. If you’ve never been to The Vaults, as a venue it’s known for being damp, hot and dark... a very fitting setting for this play that shies away from none of these things.
A fast paced glimpse in to a surreal world of waste disposal to the extreme is navigated by three actresses: Adeline Waby, Madison Clare and Helena Antoniou, playing ‘bin ladies’. We meet them interviewing Belinda, (Antoniou), to become their apprentice and by the end we learn the true meaning to the cost of waste disposal.
It’s a fairly standard start to the play, watching it you feel as if the actress’s are pushing both vocally and rhythmically- but it being the first night in a new space as the run settles in this will probably subside. That being said the back and forth between Antoniou and Waby, (as Francine), is berating throughout and doesn’t feel reactive or that they are listening to each other. Throughout the piece the pair are fairly unadventurous with their choices almost bulldozing through any attempt of comic pause or dramatic tension, and it’s hard to get on board with their characters as they just seem a bit too young to be playing them. The light relief in this, and throughout the whole piece, is the wonderfully measured and detailed performance both physically as well as emotionally of Madison Clare as the slightly dim but endearing Marla. The jewel of the show is a back and forth driven by Clare about faces on food packaging- a wonderfully witty and nuanced delivery. The only time we ever hit any empathy for a character is nudged at during a speech about Marla’s fear of flies and finding her mother dead, but there just doesn’t seem enough air given to it, maybe a choice deliberately made but doesn’t pay off.
