A storm is brewing unlike any other. Raindrops fall like bullets, human civilisation is devastated and a new world, drowned in water, is born. Only a few young people survive the catastrophe and we will see how they behave and interact with each other in the new original stage production FLOOD, directed by Joel Scott of the National Youth Theatre (NYT).
This September, audiences will have an opportunity to witness a raw, immersive and hi-tech theatre experience put together by National Youth Theatre of Great Britain and Hong Kong Youth Arts Foundation here at ArtisTree in Taikoo Place, which for the first time, will actually be flooded for the show. Written by Rory Mullarkey, FLOOD is inspired by all the recent watery disasters that have plagued the world and how it has displaced populations of people.
“It will be cinematic in scale,” says Scott. “It’s kind of like IMAX with a screen that’s 5m x 12m where the rain is falling and music playing. There is also a pool where the actors perform in that’s 12m x 8m. On the flip side, however, we bring it back to something raw and truthful where there are no gimmicks, just one actor singing a song. It goes from being modern to traditional." In short, Scott says: “It’s going to be epic.”
The sheer premise of the story should already be enough to draw audiences. A dystopian world run by teenagers, what could go wrong? A lot apparently, as they have to appeal to their sense of humanity and refrain from succumbing to their most base and primal instincts, which sound a bit like a retelling of Lord of the Flies. “It’s exactly that, but there is no piggy ripped apart,” says Scott. "It’s not brutal, but beautiful and delicate with a physical and visceral telling of the story. Still, there are tough decisions to be made in this community of varying belief systems. The consequences hang on each character's choices — who is allied to whom, who's the enemy. There's a lot of that."