A warm welcome to the Wick Theatre Company production of Disappeared.
My first encounter with this play goes back to my days as a penniless drama student at the start of the millennium when I picked up a heavily reduced copy from a closing down bookshop. I’d never heard of Phyllis Nagy or the play before. It was simply one ofa handful of modern plays I grabbed that day. I could so easily have picked up any umber of different ones.
It was one of the greatest bargains I have ever scored because I love this play, it is genuinely one of my all-time favourites. I hope tht you will love it too.
From the first time I read it – and then immediately re-read it -all those years ago to writing this note now, it has stayed with me, resonated with me and intrigued me.
I’m thrilled and delighted to have secured such a talented group of actors and crew members to bring this to life – the enthusiasm, energy, and willingness to experiment and bring ideas to the table has been brilliant. It has been a joy to work on and my heartfelt thanks to all who have been part of this journey.
Now, sit back and prepare to be immersed in intrigue because …Sarah Casey has disappeared.
Publicity #1: Disappeared
Publication: Shoreham Herald
Publication Data: March 29 2018 issue – page 44
Text Header: Where is she?
Text: Content
Sarah Casey is missing… The troubled, unhappy young travel agent left a New York dive bar one night with an enigmatic stranger and has not been seen or heard of since.
Has she fled her disappointing life to start anew elsewhere? Has she fallen prey to a sadistic killer? Or has she simply disappeared?
Find out when Wick Theatre Company stage Disappeared as part of their 70th-anniversary season.
Spokeswoman Judith Berrill aid: “Who is Elston Rupp? Is he a harmless oddball fantasist who enjoys retreating into make believe or is he something else, something far more sinister and violent? Was their meeting coincidence or fate?
“The weary detective, Ted Mitchell is on the case, searching for answers to all of these questions and more, piecing together the events of the fateful night and the strange developments that follow.”
There are adult themes and language throughout.
Publicity #2: Disappeared
Publication: Shoreham Herald
Publication Data: April 5 2018 issue – page 35
Correspondent: Phil Hewitt
Text Header: Guy aims to keep us all guessing
Text: Content
Guy Steddon first came across the play many years ago when he bought a copy in a closing-down sale at a Chichester bookshop. He appeared in it a long time ago when he was “too young” and in a production which didn’t particularly work. And ever since it has been the itch that hasn’t gone away. Now he is scratching it with his own production of Disappeared, by Phyllis Nagy, as part of Wick Theatre Company’s 70th-anniversary season.
As Guy says, the play has got a great tagline, one that intrigues: Sarah Casey is Missing. The troubled, unhappy young travel agent left a New York dive bar one night with a mysterious stranger and has not been seen or heard of since.
Has she fled her disappointing life to start anew elsewhere? Has she fallen prey to a sadistic killer? Or has she simply disappeared?
Who is Elston Rupp? Is he a harmless, oddball fantasist who enjoys retreating into make believe or is he something else, something far more sinister and violent? Was their meeting coincidence or fate?
Detective Ted Mitchell is on the case, searching for answers to all of these questions and more, piecing together the events of the fateful night and the strange developments that follow.
Guy said: “It is quite an obscure pierce that won lots of awards in the late 90s and was critically lauded but didn’t really take off. You get these kinds of things sometimes when something doesn’t really kick on as you would expect it to. But I stumbled across it. I found it in a closing-down bookshop in Chichester when I was a penniless drama student. I grabbed a handful of plays, and one of them was this one. I can’t tell you what any of the others were, but when I read this one, I was absolutely blown away.
It has been one of my all-time favourites for a long time, and I finally took the plunge and decided to do it. When you really care about something, you want to make sure that you are going to do it properly. its quite a small cast. There are only eight characters in it, but they are very, very well-rounded characters, and I just wanted to make sure I had the right people. You start it, and you think it is going to be Agatha Christie-esque, but it is very multi-layered, a psychological thriller but lots of it is very funny. It is a play that poses question after question but always wrong-foots you. You can never feel easy with it. But at the same time, it is very funny. It is tense, but there are moments of black humour.
“This young travel agent has disappeared. She has had a relatively-unhappy personal life. She goes into a bar and meets a man, a very strange, unusual man. They leave together, and she is never seen again. The play is about what happens to her. Has this strange man killed her? He is certainly odd, but is he dangerously odd? Or has she just run away?
It goes bck and forth in time so you find out much more about Sarah, and you also find out more about the strange man. And also the detective. You think he is your average New York cop from a police procedural. He is dog tired and world weary, but he becomes a little unsettled by what has happened and ends up digging within himself…”
Performances of Disappeared run from Wednesday, April 4 to Saturday, April 7 at the Barn Theatre, Southwick Street, Southwick. The curtain up is 7.45pm. Tickets £11 on 01273 597094 or www.wicktheatre.co.uk
Review #1: Disappeared
Publication: Shoreham Herald
Publication Data: April 5 2018 – 08:38 – on line
Publication Data: April 12 2018 issue – page 13
Correspondent: Elaine Hammond
Text Header: Chalenging thriller shows strength of talent at Wick
Text: Content
Phyllis Nagy’s psychological thriller Disappeared saw Wick Theatre Company at the top of their game.
Director Guy Steddon found this gem in a bookshop’s closing down sale when he was a drama student, and has finally brought it to the stage for Wick’s 70th season. It is fitting to have something so weighty in this anniversary year, something a little different to usual to show the full range of talent at Southwick’s Barn Theatre. It is long, there was no denying that, but the audience stayed enthralled throughout.
What has happened to Sarah Casey? Nobody knows for sure but everyone has their own theory and it is such a clever text, that almost any option can be justified. It is hard to say too much without spoiling it, as you really are kept guessing right up to the end.
The scenes are not written in chronological order, jumping backwards and forwards so little clues are dropped. During the second half, everything begins to drop into place – or does it?
Such a demanding piece requires the best actors you can find in amateur theatre and Guy has put together a stellar cast for this one.
Dan Dryer is positively menacing in the role of Elston Rupp. He delivered his long soliloquies at a steady pace, pausing for effect, so it becomes more and more creepy as we learn more and more about him.
Susanne Crosby, in contrast, was loud and brash, a brilliant performance as Sarah’s mum, Ellen Casey.
Sarah Frost plays Elston’s boss, Natalie, and the way she responded to him helps build the vision of him as a little odd, indeed sinister.
John Garland is the detective, Ted Mitchell, and his interrogation scene with Elston is just mesmerising as you wait to see who will crack first.
The part of Timothy Creighton was something a bit different for H Reeves and he puts in a moving performance as a man caught up in the mystery simply because of his clothes.
And so to Sarah Casey, who was in many ways lost in terms of her life as well as in reality, and a strong performance from Jacqueline Harper. Although she had disappeared, she cropped up throughout, due to the way the timeline was twisted, and Jacqueline used this to develop the character.
There was a lot of humour in the play but it was also very dark. It was haunting and challenging and left people talking about it for hours, even the actors themselves.
Review #2: Disappeared
Publication: Brighton Argus
Publication Data: April 9 2018 issue – page ??
Correspondent: Barrie Jerram
Text: Content
THIS intriguing mystery revolves around the unexplained disappearance of a woman after she leaves a dive bar in Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan.
Sarah Casey, a travel agent who has never travelled, frequents this bar to esscape the aggressive bickering with her mother and the pressure to marry her boyfriend.
One evening at the bar she meets Elston, an oddball who works in a second-hand-clothing shop. A fantasist, he wears other people’s clothes and assumes their identity.
Their conversation on the night Sarah vanishes is played out and is interwoven with scenes prior to and following her disappearance.
Guy Steddon’s direction builds up tension which is tempered from time to time with touches of comedy. Sadly the play is overlong with some dialogue and a couple of scenes that could have been cut.
His cast is rich in talent with Dan Dryer giving a tour de force performance as the weird Elston. He switches effortlessly from rambling fantasy to chilling menace, often with just an eye movement. His monologue at the police station is spellbinding.
Jacqueline Harper is also impressive as she displays Sarah’s twin sides – sober travel agent and wild drunk. Susanne Crosby, as the mother, is both funny and ferocious. Their last row is vicious with each going for the jugular.
There is much to admire in John Garland’s police detective. It’s all there – the weariness of a man who is sick of his job and having to face up to the breakdown of his marriage. The investigation leaves him emotionally scarred as it does on the man wrongly believed to be the man responsible for the disappearance. H Reeves brings out the man’s anguish as his reputation and privacy is destroyed by the press.
Other fine performances are given by Sarah Frost, Phil Nair-Brown and Matt Arnold.
