Ashes

Watching Ashes is like listening to someone trying to explain something extremely simple in an excessively convoluted manner, much like the instructions for assembling Ikea furniture. The ideas that this play explores, namely that of the strength of the human spirit and its ultimate triumph over oppression, have to be verbally rehashed by the characters towards the end, because the entire proceeding hour has over complicated all of the issues.

Ashes relates four separate stories from various periods – two futuristic, the other two historical – which all share the theme of oppression, the victims of which - books, houses, witches and priests - are punished by burning. In each tale something immaterial but meaningful survives the flames: an idea, a song or a person’s faith.

This is an overambitious play from writer Ali Muriel that would be difficult for any theatre company to do justice. But, as it stands, instead of the quality of writing and acting, it is the imaginative set littered with burnt scraps of printed paper and the various alternating accents of the characters that leave the biggest impression on any open-minded member of the audience.