UCL Drama’s Reclamation

At the beginning of the month, UCL Drama took Bloomsbury Theatre by storm during their annual BAME showcase, Reclamation. The showcase featured eight student-written pieces on a variety of themes—including suicide, friendship and ChatGPT. The depth and breath of the showcase was both engaging and profound. Reclaiming stories that may have previously been overshadowed by biases or cultural appropriation, Reclamation was truly UCL Drama Society at its very best.

Speaking with Vanessa Chan, the society’s Diversity and Inclusion Officer and one of Reclamation’s Executive Producers, she explained the origins behind the production: “Our theme of thrift store trinkets this year aims to highlight how personal POC stories are to their creators, just like how an item from a charity shop, left behind and seemingly mundane, has years of intricate history.”

I popped along to their evening performance, where I had the pleasure of watching six of the pieces in the showcase. Here’s a brief run-down of the evening and the amazing cast, producers and writers that made the production possible.

Sotong, written by Kay Lynn Er

This heart-breaking mother-daughter duologue had me close to tears. A fantastic performance featuring some of the best acting I’ve seen at a UCL production. Sotong quickly but movingly evolved from a dispute over groceries to the grief and loss experienced over the passing and absence of a parental figure.

Cast: Ashley New, Megan Teo; Assistant directors: Audrey Lau and Iris Zhao; Producer Vanessa Chan

Dishoom dans le noir, written by Zahra Hamdulay

Featuring everyone’s favourite Bombay-inspired restaurant, Dishoom, this piece struck a real chord. The superficial beginning in which three friends lied about the enjoyment of their initial days at university was quickly brought into perspective during an unexpected blackout. As the lights went off, the truth came out. Issues of settling into a new country, city and university were highly relatable. The only thing that could have made the anxieties of these three friends more intense was if they were trying to settle into King’s… yikes!

Cast: Ume Bhattacharya, Asmite Thareja, Samriddhi Sharma, Jia Makkar; Assistant director: Anoushka Jain; Producer Stella Liu

Yum, written by Shehryar Malik

This complex piece is best described as experimental. Following the surreal world of characters H and W, the piece followed their experiences with hummus. For H and W, hummus wasn’t just a tasty accompaniment for carrot and celery sticks, it was a delicious, chick-pea dip with a deeper meaning of purpose and identity. The characters navigated complex issues of temptation with the introduction of the mysterious Mousse Angel, and the play raised existential questions about the pursuit of happiness. It certainly left me with a lot to think about.

Cast: Aaliyah Dean, Pranav Sambamoorthi, Megan Teo; Assistant director Jenny Wong; Producer Shria Jindal

Letter from a Pyre, written by Alperen Acik

Both deep and moving, this tragic tale explored themes of belonging, guilt and suicide. Alp is the son of a first-generation immigrant, and is suffering from extreme trauma and feelings of inadequacy. He decides to end it all, and leave behind a letter for his loving mother. It touched my heart to see such issues of extreme mental health and identity portrayed in such a gentle way. Letter from a Pyre acts as a reminder that loneliness and identity-trauma are not laughable problems, but serious concerns with life-and-death consequences.

Cast: Tahsinah Akther, Rahul Raparthi; Assistant director Gunjan Gupta; Producer Rui Rui Xie

The Strength in Weakness, written by Bonnie McGhee

A very well written and directed piece balancing light-hearted humour with a deeper moral undertone. A conversation between a woman and her therapist, the piece challenged social expectations associated with race: balancing the desire of the woman to be her authentic, shy self whilst feeling obligated to confine to the traits of a stereotypical black woman. This was a real social statement, and left me reflecting on what I expect of the people around me: my friends, family and fellow students. This was a profound and moving piece.

Cast: Tasia Jade, Felicity Foko; Assistant director Aaliyah Dean; Producer Vanessa Chan

Off the Grid, written by Miri Aung

Perhaps my favourite production of the evening, this piece combined superb acting with excellent stage production. Aimee, a model student struggling to be a model daughter, can no longer endure communicating with her overbearing family, so she uses ChatGPT to do it for her. At first all goes well, but when ChatGPT begins lying about Aimee’s success—her new major in economics and her early graduation as valedictorian—Aimee has to confess to her deception. Balancing humour, AI and over-loving, sometimes insufferable, family members, Off the Grid was a huge hit with the audience and the perfect end to a wonderful night.

Cast: Jennifer Baron, Kelly Yeo, Uday Banerjee, Caleb Tan, Bernissa Yeo, Maya Chetlapalli; Assistant director Isabel Thwin; Producer Stella Liu

In addition to these magnificent pieces, the showcase also featured The Case of the Missing Hong Bao, written by Vicky Lee, and Shaken, Stirred and Spoken, written by Ivaana Mitra, both which feature during the other two showings of Reclamation.

The showcase featured a huge range of talent—from wonderful actors, some of whom shed literal tears (amazing!), to fantastic writing, directing, production and staging. If you didn’t catch Reclamation, you really missed out. But fear not, UCL Drama Society has a whole host of productions lined-up over the coming months. Although student productions, the heart and soul poured into these shows is of a professional standard.

Future productions:

PRIDE showcase, February 2024

An Ideal Husband, performing 16th November until 18th November

The Philanthropist and As Terrible as God, later in term 1. Dates TBC

For updates on upcoming shows and casting, follow @ucldramasociety on instagram

UCL Drama’s Reclamation

© Pi Media 2024