Cast Iron (REVIEW & ANALYSIS)

Cast Iron Reflection

Cast Iron is a unique audio only show put on by the Factory Theatre, written by Lisa Codrington, directed by Mumbi Tindyebwa Otu, and starring Alison Sealy-Smith- Cast Iron brings a binaural audio drama to life through the voice of our main character Libya Atwell. Cast Iron succeeds in creating a haunting, tragic, and beautiful story through brilliant writing, sound design, and production to keep the listeners curious and at attention as the story progresses- although the story lost me at some point without a visual thing to focus on. One of the true highlights of the show is the writing. The playwright- Lisa Codrington- is a Toronto based writer and actor. She has won awards such as the K.M Hunter Theatre Award and the Carol Bolt Award for Playwrights. With two more shows on the way Codrington is sure to bring more beautiful stories into the theatre scene of Canada. 

I watched Cast Iron on November 28, 2021 through a livestream from the Factory Theatre. I was deeply moved by the story of Libya and her haunting past which comes back to stalk her as she uses humour and storytelling to deflect the tragedy of her history. This one woman cast plays with the use of sound design to create an effective audio performance that is stunning to listen to. Although it was for the most part very well designed there were some issues with my audio personally which I cannot tell if it was a broadcast issue or my own issue. Some lines were delivered too quietly or quickly for me to understand and I had trouble keeping up with my notes. Some of the sound effects were also too loud and occasionally drowned out the lead actor. It was also an issue that the main screen for the viewers remained a mostly black screen for the majority of the play which made it very hard for me personally to focus, some visual art would have really added to the performance.

Despite the issues with sound and understanding I found the story beautifully performed and written. Alison Sealy-Smith is a wonderful actress who takes her role in this play extremely seriously and displays both wit and tragedy with grace and ease as she gives her all in this performance. The use of repetition in dialogue really drove home the impact of the despair and lightheartedness in our main character Libya, who repeats phrases to herself often almost as a way of self soothing. 

Overall I found the performances extremely enjoyable although I had some issues with the sound design and lack of visual components to focus on. I think the play could have benefitted from a piece of visual art on display that might have encompassed the themes of the play and made it more visually appealing for the audience. With the sound issues I think a lot of them might have been a one-time error, possibly a volume setting turned up too loud on one of the sound cues, making it more jarring than it was meant to be, which can happen often in any performance. It would be a simple fix and didn’t take away much from my enjoyment of the play.