●●●●○

Droplet is a devised piece, written and directed by Breffni Holahan and Claire O’Reilly as part of the DU Players Freshers Festival that aims to showcase the emerging talent of first years or any theatre newbies.

It stars Adam Boate, Izzy Matuschka, Phoebe Moore, Grace Morgan, Ciaran Parker, Kevin Ryan, and Dara Ryan-Charleton. The play showcases a day in the life of their communal bathroom in student digs. The metaphorical and actual door has been ripped off its hinges, and they’re all suddenly open with the audience but perhaps not each other.

Droplet begins with a talking toilet (voiced by Ronan Carey) telling us about “all of the shite” it has to put up with. The bathroom is shown as a common place of refuge in these college-goers’ lives. The intimate setting allows the characters to bare their souls to the audience, leaving us to inspect their problems. After a short opening monologue, the roommates join each other on stage and demonstrate the flurry of activity that takes place in the bathroom on any given morning. This includes a clumsy, cute, and charming group dance number which sets up the tone of the play nicely.

Each actor has an individual monologue throughout the play, with an exchange of words or banter between the house-mates signalling a change of actor and story. This use of dialogue breaks up the script’s word-heavy monologues. The conversations connected the characters and their stories back to each other in a humorous yet touching way. On the whole, the monologues themselves dealt with major issues of sexuality, gender and acceptance, whilst also honing in on specific problems of body image and lost friendship. The actors speak with a sense of truthfulness and their interpretations of certain ideas or problems often find the audience in a state of agreement or nostalgia. The writing itself follows a spoken word style which suits the rambling and spurting nature of characters who are simply bursting with emotions.

Although this play had many positive points, the staging and placement of certain actors and set pieces made it very difficult to see their faces at times. During at least one monologue, the actor was blocked by a sink as he was on the ground or in a bath. For the majority this wasn’t a problem but something to be looked into if it were to be shown again.

The strong words carried by these striking new actors made this a thoroughly enjoyable viewing experience. I left with the Rhythm of the Night in my head, a warm fuzzy feeling in my heart, and a new appreciation for my bathroom.