hgat.txt

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http://www.nightnews.net/fringe2007.htm#hgat
Title: Habagat
5 gold bats
http://www.curiousandcompany.co.uk/

24 08 07 - Billed as a theatrical, dark, comic horror story, this
was certainly one of the best shows at the Fringe in 2007. A gothic
thriller of empire era eccentricity at the isolated tropical island
of Habagat. The four Witnor sisters are the last remaining
inhabitants after a failed colonisation attempt. Papa is dead and
waiting to be shipped home to England in a banana box. The action
takes place in their Victorian colonial drawing room and papa's box
is in the corner. The veneer of harmonious Victorian period 
domesticity as the ladies take tea together in the opening scene is 
soon stripped away. Lizzie has taken to drink, Miriam has gone feral
and wonders the island like a ghost setting traps for mermaids. 
Sophia is good at everything but obsessive and Jane Angharad as 
Constance provides the narration. When they read papa's will, it 
contains some unpleasant surprises. The sisters have become, by 
force of circumstances, spinsters with no money, no prospects and
nowhere to go. There is some fantastic work by the professional cast
who draw the audience to believe in the story of this period psycho-
drama. They are a plausible family and the sisters maintain a 
dramatic tension verging on suppressed hysteria throughout. Any
dark humour comes mainly in the characterisations and interplay
of the frustrated siblings. The horror comes in the ending as we
learn that the island's history is cloaked in bloody secrets. 
Meanwhile natives seem to have arrived on the other side of the 
island and the supply ship sinks! With the sound of jungle drums
coming closer what will happen to the unfortunate sisters, left 
in the lurch by the folly of failed empire building.

By John Vassallo