The Last Drop

The Last Drop is a domestic, absurdist parlour drama in Portuguese with supertitles, somewhere between Pinter and Beckett, built around a crack in the ceiling of a flat about to be sold. As the leak spreads, the play opens out onto city living, water, generations, ownership and the precarious business of keeping everything balanced.

There is an essence of horror laced with humour here, but the production understands exactly how far to push its absurdity. The hyperbolic acting fits the tone perfectly, turning an already strange situation into something properly grotesque. The tiny and (exceptionally though warm) Zoo Playground is used brilliantly, and the set does far more than the size of its stage ought to allow.

Then there is the lighting: grotesque, unsettling and pitched well for the cartoonish world being created. The result is a small production with a surprisingly large theatrical imagination.

Very good. Really quite something to see.

The Last Drop by Manás Theatre Lab. Credit Di Scapino/Jammil Bubruk.