Corrina Corrina, Everyman Theatre, Liverpool, UK (17 May – 4 June 2020 https://www.everymanplayhouse.com/
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| Corrina faces a metaphorical storm. All pictures by Helen Murray |
Workplace sexual harassment today is a big mental health issue, especially for seafarers. Victim’s lives are wrecked. Promising careers are wasted in an industry facing severe shortages.
The death of Cadet Akhona Geveza in 2010 and the at-sea rape of
Midshipman X in 2021 mean most people now know that being on a ship where
someone senior is pursuing and disrespecting you is a 24:7 hell that needs to
be stopped forever. Pronto.
For the first time, a play – not a trade union survey or policy
document – is making that story of sexual harassment at sea come alive. Corrina Corrina also shows the
structural injustice and the gas lighting in a context of the racial injustice
against the Filipino crew.
THE STORY
Third Mate Corrina Wilkinson (Laura Elsworthy) is 28, smart, fair-minded
and set on becoming a captain. She joins container ship MSC Keto in Felixstowe, headed for Singapore.
The good news is that her captain (smug David Crellin) prides himself on being
progressively pro-women. That’s one battle less for her, she thinks.
Then Corrina finds that she
knows the First Officer, Will Lewis (creepy
Mike Noble) from Warsash training college. He’s a guy who once before didn’t believe
her ‘No’ meant no, although conveniently he now mis-remembers her as complicit.
Being a prat and egotist, he thinks he’s in with a chance this
trip. But she’s makes it clear she just wants to get on with her job.
The Filipino crew have mixed feelings about a woman onboard.
Corrina doesn’t endear herself by telling bitter gendered jokes, swearing,
eating in the crew space and not being up for karaoke. She’s not being an acceptable
sort of lady, and that’s as upsetting as Mr Bligh’s bad language was on the Bounty.
Luckily, in this tenderness-free zone, deck worker Angelo (loveable
James Bradwell) and Corrina become pals. They enjoy the kind of extraordinary
camaraderie that can be possible between even the most mismatched of shipmates;
they trust, despite the class divide.
Not so luckily, Will takes against this (non-sexual) affinity. In a
racist way he warns her that as an officer and woman she should keep her
distance. They aren’t used to a woman being
... open with them.’ 
Confrontation on the Keto: Rafael, Coriina, Rizal and Angelo.
Angelo’s fellow crew members are uneasy about this friendship too. Lonely Rafael (a convincingly wary Martin Sarreal) resents people crossing boundaries. And the older Rizal (Angelo Paragoso) stays circumspectly out of the way.
Trouble mounts as Will ‘chivalrously’ bullies Rafael, which
undermines Corrina. Will clearly becomes a liability when he plays a
traumatising trick on Corrina. (This is a thriller, so I’m holding back. On what
happens, but it’s so bad that she complains to Captain.
Will not only denies what he did, he wrecks her status – which may
ruin her future career. Similarly, his impact
on Angelo causes an irredeemable tragedy and worsens class/race relations on
board.
Stressed out of her wits, Corrina takes revenge. See it to find
out how she does so.
WHY IT WORKS
This is a moving and wise play, about the importance about
integrity and respect, and the proximity of suicide. It’s a world where a Dolly
Parton song can save your life, where loan shark attacks are inescapable, and
where pix of your kids are a constant reminder that your shipmates can never be
your real family.
The two-tier set makes the class conflict clear: white officers
can move between the high-tech site of control aloft and the scruffy crew mess
room below with its pitiful microwave and sauce bottles below. But the crew are
sentenced to the netherworld dump where the karaoke machine is the company
-supplied sweetener that doesn’t ever make up for the structural injustice.
The production by Headlong and Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse, with a script by Chloe Moss. The director is Holly Race Roughan. If you can't wait until a tour gets sorted then pre-order the book at https://www.nickhernbooks.co.uk/corrina-corrina
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| Traumatised Corrina faces Will in the ship's citadel |
I’ve watched and read a lot of ship-based dramas. This stage play ranks with the two best modern merchant shipping movies: Stowaways (1997) by Denis Chou nard and Nicolas Wadimoff, and Fidelio: Alice's Odyssey (2016) by Lucie Borleteau.
Corrina, Corinna is about a totally different world from Anything Goes, Carry on Cruising and the Love Boat TV series. The production gives us a profound understanding of human relationships and the intensity that can make a voyage life-changing, even fatal.
