Tam

It may come as a surprise, but I don’t always just stalk drag queens. Sometimes somebody just catches my eye for no particular reason. One of these is an actor called Tam Williams who I saw performing Shakespeare with Propeller last year (admittedly in the first picture I saw of him he had half of his face painted in womanly make up).

Since then I have watched him in a rather poor 90s TV thriller called Killer Net (which also starred Jason Orange from Take That - coo!) and even stayed home one night to see him on Rosemary and Thyme.

Last night I took a trip to Islington to see him back on stage in The Dybbuk, which was playing at the Kings Head Theatre.

According to European Jewish folk law, the Dybbuk is a possessing spirit that attaches itself to the body of a living person and inhabits it. In the play, a boy collapses and dies of a broken heart when he learns the girl he loves is to enter an arranged marriage. Once dead, he comes back to live in her body and causes havoc for the people who prevented the two of them from being together.

The text is rich, intelligent and beautiful, there’s discussion about souls and honouring the dead, but there are also parts that are a bit bonkers and I did find myself laughing at inopportune moments.

The heartbroken boy, Hannan’s death scene is a bit hammy and made me smirk, even though he is comforted through his final moments by the lovely Tam. He plays a messenger who seems to have turned up out of nowhere but moves around throughout the play offering words of wisdom and insight that provide a narrative to the plot.

The best parts are the haunting scenes where Hannan and the girl, Leah’le, speak in unison and there’s some well thought out choreography where their two bodies move together as one.

The subsequent exorcism scene reminded me of playing Ouija board at college. Do teenagers still go through that phase, do you think, or has the electrical age diminished it? Maybe it was just part and parcel of being a goth?

Anyway, the Rabbi is called and he draws a circle of trust and calls first the Dybbuk and then the Dybukk’s father to find out why the haunting is happening. It’s a bit noisy and it did make me giggle a bit, but mostly I enjoyed this unusual play and it reminded me of the gift of stalking , that you are drawn to people that will introduce you to things that you would never normally have noticed.

I wonder where my obsessions will take me next?