The title of Open Clasp’s new show refers to underground networks of fungi, invisibly connecting plant life. It’s a metaphor adopted by the sex workers at the centre of the show, who connect their activist efforts through hidden webs of communication, and a structuring principle of Catrina McHugh’s script. Co-created with sex worker activists from England, Ireland and New Zealand, Mycelial loosely links together snapshots from the lives of its composite characters.
A woman in Ireland is filling out the census, contemplating how to define herself. In New Zealand, a mother worries about how to talk to her daughter about her work. And in a phone box in England, a survivor of sexual abuse looks back across her early life. These are just a few of the characters we briefly meet, whose stories weave in and out of one another as the performers move around on the different levels of Amanda Mascarenhas’ gorgeous, softly-lit set.
The production is wide-ranging and ambitious, bearing the marks of its long incubation period during and after the height of the pandemic. The characters talk about the impacts of lockdown and the invasion of Ukraine, providing a window on to their day-to-day lives and worries. While the focus is sex work, with references to decriminalisation and the Nordic Model, Mycelial also gestures towards a variety of other, linked causes, from Black Lives Matter to the fight for trans rights. The initially isolated speakers start making small points of connection across the stage.
In theory, this all aligns with Open Clasp’s aims to centre the voices of its co-creators and not put any single face to these issues. But in practice, the delicate threads of the piece never quite mesh. The show moves fitfully from one fragment to the next, the connections often too deeply submerged to detect their logic. Within this mess of stories, we hear so little from some characters that it’s hard to engage with them, despite the best efforts of the cast. As an act of listening and solidarity, Mycelial certainly has value, but as theatre it lacks a clear sense of shape and momentum.
• Mycelial is running at Northern Stage until 28 October
