Daisy Hall’s latest stage production, Dogstar, features a promising premise as it follows a small group of survivors stranded aboard a whaling vessel caught in arctic ice. As the ship groans under the pressure of the shifting environment, the remaining crew members grapple with their precarious situation and the isolation of their frozen surroundings. T he setup is strong in Daisy Hall’s follow-up to her debut, Bellringers.
The character dynamics are central to the production, featuring Babben, played by Justin Edwards, an experienced whaler with nearly 40 years of service. He is joined by the mischievous Gorey, portrayed by Adam Rojko Vega, who keeps a firearm close at hand, and the youngest crew member, Sam, played by Abdul Jalloh, who appears paralyzed by deep-seated anxiety. Their conflict is rooted in the shared loss of their comrades, leading to finger-pointing and allegations of “bad luck” following Sam’s act of killing a baby whale. Adding to the tension is the omnipresent threat of scurvy, which has already claimed other shipmates and looms over the survivors with the risk of hallucinatory symptoms. And most strait-laced, is Sam (Abdul Jalloh) who seems imm, babben (Justin Edwards) is an old hand who has whaled for almost 40 years; Gorey (Adam Rojko Vega) is a mischief-maker who walks around with a gun; the youngest. In different ways, including talk of “bad luck” because Sam has killed a baby whale, the men have lost dear comrades on the Dogstar and hold each other responsible.
Despite these high-stakes elements, the production—directed by Lucy Morrison—struggles to find a consistent momentum. The script often circles back to repetitive bickering that lacks a sufficiently sharp or dark comedic edge. While the play touches on Beckettian themes of stasis and absurdity, it falls short of providing a profound existential exploration. The narrative wobbles between a ghost story and a mutiny drama, failing to fully commit to the tension of either genre. Furthermore, the dialogue repeatedly invokes the captain’s failures and the industry of overwhaling, framing an oil barrel as a heavy-handed metaphor for contemporary environmental depletion.
The story also introduces enigmatic elements, such as recurring visions of the shipowner Michael Carmichael, whose name serves as a pointed joke. As Sam begins to wear the shipowner’s clothes and carry his watch, the play teeters on the edge of a psychological shift that remains largely underdeveloped. A final plot twist feels similarly detached and enigmatic, leaving the production unable to generate the necessary power to match the turbulence of its maritime setting. Ultimately, while the play attempts to chart a course through themes of exploitation and survival, it remains trapped in the same frozen inertia as its characters.
