On a close, hot and humid night at The Old Red Lion Theatre, this latest production of Ivories, written by Riley Elton McCarthy and directed by George Rankcom, promises shudders and chills in an intimate setting, where the audience can see the whites of the characters’ eyes.
Brought back to their childhood home to care for their ailing grandmother, prodigal playwright Sloane and their botanist husband Gwyn are struggling to settle the estate of Sloane’s ailing grandmother after their lives have been uprooted by tragedy and loss.
A sudden increase in the intensity of Sloane’s obsession to complete their latest script in the house where hitherto hidden tragedies have occurred, forces Gwyn to question the wisdom and safety of Sloane’s reassessment and integration of the family trauma into a finished play.
When estate agent, and Gwyn’s childhood friend, Beckham, arrives to help the couple strengthen their relationship and attain a new understanding between the three of them, they soon discover there may be more to the house, and more to Sloane, hidden beneath its crumbling foundations.
As events in the house escalate and get weirder and eerier, the cracks in the relationship dynamics between Sloane, Gwyn and Beckham emerge and begin to dominate.
And throughout all this someone else appears to be watching….
“Ivories” is a love letter to the traditional golden age of Horror, with a flavour of Grand Guignol staging running through it. For those lovers of this genre, there is much to enjoy.
The audience enters a faded, old-fashioned room, all crumbling plasterwork, threadbare carpets, peeling wallpaper, ancient books, and two creepy Victorian dolls on the dusty shelves thrown in for good measure.
Appropriately, there is a storm raging, with plentiful claps of thunder, and a flickering overhead light. Rain continually drums on the roof.
Every trope of the horror genre is here; whether that be the appearance and use of a Ouija board, a basement that is strictly off limits, or the sudden occasional appearance of a “now you see it now you don’t” apparition.
The set, sound and lighting all combine to provide a magnificent backdrop to the phantasmagorical escalation of supernatural events that drive the plot forward. To lift a line from the narrative, “This house is stirring up things you want to stay buried.”
Certainly, aficionados of films such as “The Old Dark House,” “The House on Haunted Hill” and, especially, those who have seen the stage version of “The Woman in Black” will find much that is recognisable here.
It is, of course, all too easy for horror to descend into parody and over the top escalation.
The fact that, largely, “Ivories” avoids such pitfalls is to the credit of the skilled ensemble playing of the cast, who all deliver realistic characterisations which give a believability to the intertwining of, and the obvious tension inherent within, their relationships.
“Ivories” manages, for the most part, to offer an intimate, unsettling yet thought-provoking portrait of a bisexual twist on the traditional love triangle, whilst exploring issues of generational trauma and the power of repressed memory and experience.
The vulnerability of the emotional interactions between Sloane, Gwyn and Beckham underpin the gradual progression of unsettling and ominous supernatural events and provides a platform for the shocks to come.
That being said, one of the difficulties of this production is that there is a lot of plot to communicate, and a huge amount of action to deliver.
The all too human tangled skein of flawed relationships and their consequences grapple with the need to deliver a fast passed escalation and acceleration of a pure horror tale. This dual intention leads to a muddying of the narrative waters, and a confusion of dramatic clarity, culminating in a powerful denouement, but one which leaves the final message nebulous and unsatisfying.
There is much to admire in “Ivories.” The care taken to heighten the tension and intensity of the supernatural plot thread is well thought through and executed, particularly in the second half of the play, which moves along at a rattling pace. The visual trickery certainly combines very effectively with the soundscape to produce some genuinely scary moments.
However, in the final scenes, played out in the basement, (which everyone seems to have a compulsion to enter in horror stories), there is a sense of the dramatic climax becoming merely an unstable edifice of shock piling upon shock without a sense of finality, redemption or satisfactory explanation.
Sometimes, in both the natural and supernatural worlds, less is more.
Review by Johnny Oxford
A bisexual spin on the Golden Age of Horror, this propulsive and spine-tingling new drama dares you to think twice about what may be lurking underneath your home that you’d rather stay buried. After a haunting smash-hit run at the Edinburgh Fringe and three limited engagements in New York, Ivories gets a second poltergeist in its London premiere, that unites critically acclaimed director Georgie Rankcom and subversive breakout playwright Riley Elton McCarthy (The Lesbian Play at The Triad Theater, recommended by Time Out & New York Times) for a bone-chilling evening of horror.
COMPANY
Riley Elton McCarthy (Sloane)
Matthias Hardarson (Gwyn)
Daniel Neil Ash (Beckham)
Ashley M. Cowles (The Neighbour)
CREATIVE
Riley Elton McCarthy – Playwright and Producer
Georgie Rankcom – Director
Waverley Moran – Stage Management
Verity Johnson – Set and Costume Design
Skylar Turnbull-Hurd – Lighting Design
Adam Lenson – Sound Design
IVORIES
Old Red Lion Theatre
1 to 26 July 2025
