Page 261 - Guildhall Coverage Book 2020-21

5 March 2021

THE DROWNED WORLD (Guildhall School of Music and
Drama)****

By Cal

Link: https://www.gsmd.ac.uk/about_the_school/view_all_events/?tx_julleevents_pi1%5BshowUid%5
D=6877

Available until: 10 March
th
Imagine a word where you’re either accepted or you’re not. Where worth is decided on how you look.
Beautiful people rule the world. People who are not beautiful must be disposed of

Maybe we don’t need to imagine it. For some people, that is the real world. Social media is taking
over and social media values beauty. Everyone tries to post the most beautiful (or the most
airbrushed) photos on Instagram. If they don’t get recognition, it’s a disaster. I do believe that beauty
is in the eye of the beholder and I would like to believe that everyone is beautiful to somebody, but we
are often the people beholding ourselves, in mirrors and in selfies, and judging ourselves based on
our Instagram views, and it’s so easy to see everything that’s wrong and nothing of what is right.
When really, only one thing is wrong and that is the belief system that values beauty above everything
else.

Of course, it would be even worse if we were valued based on intelligence. Everybody can be
beautiful to somebody, but believing that everybody is intelligent to somebody might be a bit more of a
stretch – though intelligence is very difficult to measure and there are also different types of
intelligence. If we were valued based on how nice we were, that would create a better world in theory,
but we already have a problem with people being fake. Would that situation improve if being fake was,
at least for some of the people, essential to survival?

But let’s get back to the play. To the world that is nothing like ours on the surface but disturbingly
close to it underneath. The Drowned World was published in 2002, before social media became a
thing. I was two in 2002 so even if I do have some vague memories, which I probably don’t, I doubt I
spent a lot of time online. My mum says the internet was around, though not everyone had access to
it and you either had to pay a lot of money or book internet time at the library. Some people had email
addresses, but that was more a work thing. There were online internet forums which you could post
on without creating an account. There were search engines, but nothing with the scope of google.

There was no way of knowing what we’d all be doing in 2021, almost twenty years later, yet Gary
Owen has written a world that feels scarily like the one we live in now. Whether it was a nightmare
fantasy or an all too accurate prediction, I couldn’t say. But it’s a powerful piece that shocks us twice
over, firstly because the world of the play is so terrible and secondly because there are far too many
similarities with the world we live in now.

There are four characters in this play. Kelly and Darren are citizens and Julian and Tara are non-
citizens. This means Julian and Tara need to be disposed of - by Kelly and Darren. The characters
navigate the play, getting to know each other and themselves. They are similar on the surface. Four
young people living in the same city. But Kelly and Darren want to be good citizens who do the right
thing. Julian and Tara want to survive… at first. I suppose, in a way, Kelly and Darren want to survive