With Love from Saint John: A Review of Jack MacGregor’s Prophets
Giulia Ferrando
★★★★★
Showing a great deal of promise is a curse few may be lucky enough to bear in their lifetimes. And when those who sing their praises always sing them in the future conditional, it can mount a tremendous sense of pressure on each next move this promising person takes.With all eyes on them, how could any one writer, or play, or 60 odd minutes live up to so much expectation, the sheer volume of appearances on “shows to watch” lists? With a show as hyped this Fringe as Jack MacGregor’s new play Prophets, the only way forward is down then, right? Wrong.
Firmly a two-hander, Prophets opens with Rebecca Wilkie as Kerris, a paleoclimate researcher, arriving on the isolated island of Saint John in New Zealand to dissect its coral. Greeted by a meek and almost bird-like Joe, portrayed with real merit by Xander Cowan, who also plays every other character in the following hour, Kerris is apprehensive from the jump, becoming more suspicious by the minute of both Joe’s over-hospitality and his mysterious religion.
As the play moves forward, it becomes clearer and clearer that Joe is no ordinary pious Christian, and it seems he speaks for the island. He utilizes the vague and generalizing language familiar to Netflix documentaries and investigative podcast exposés. Everything is a definite article on Saint John: The Prophet, The Book, The Church, The Teachings, etc, and Kerris can’t let it go without making her reservations known.
Suddenly, as Cowan performs his first of many accent-switches of the hour, he is an English librarian (and a real piece of work, too!), and we are thrown for another loop. Two timelines are at play, and as Prophets begins to cut between them, we fall deeper and deeper into the world of Saint John. To those who fear spoilers, don’t worry: here’s where I’ll leave you. This is just the beginning.
Prophets doesn’t just hold up to its promise, it is a masterclass. In storytelling, direction, staging, you name it. And maybe for the phenomenal pairing that is MacGregor and director Fraser Scott, seemingly unstoppable forces in Scottish theatre, this five-star review will merely be a lateral move, but it’s one I’ll happily shell out. Emma Moran’s set design is a feat of pure magic: striking and evocative of isolation and the elemental. Scott’s direction is especially inventive, utilizing every inch of the small blackbox venue and truly transporting the audience. Prophets somehow achieves all the expansiveness and mobility of a radio play, the close-up vulnerability of film, and the ephemeral gravitas of stage.
I couldn’t recommend this show more, though hopefully you already have a ticket because it’s sold out through the end of its run. I suggest you set a few alarms, though, and wait outside the doors for a chance to sneak in at the back of the queue. It might take a try or two, but dear God (too soon?) it’ll be worth it.
Elena Cebulash
