Simon Ward reviews SALT at the Riverside Studios

The company Contemporary Ritual Theatre (CRT), who here present Beau Hopkins’s play SALT, are based in Great Yarmouth, but this tale long predates its days as a seaside resort. It is steeped in the ancient lore of the sea, from which its inhabitants scrape a precarious and dangerous living. Death is never far from anyone’s thoughts, and a complex web of superstition has grown up in an attempt to keep it at bay. Here the Widow Pruttock (Emily Outred) lives with her son Man Billy (Mylo McDonald) – her desperation to cling on to him is as fierce as his determination to get away to sea. With echoes of Shakespeare and Greek tragedy, Billy is also haunted by need to avenge the death of his father

The story plays out in a kind of magic circle which the characters ritualistically form out of a huge ship’s rope. There is a nice conceit that the villagers gossiping and commenting on the action stay outside the rope, while the real play takes place within it. Fishing nets and buckets are never far away, and you can almost smell the sea salt in the air. Into this harsh reality steps Sheldis (Bess Roche). Her colourful attire (costumes by Amanda Harrold) contrasts brilliantly with the drab workaday clothes of the Widow and Billy – she is immediately seductive, other-worldly and powerful. She can even prophesise the future. Billy, for his part, is powerless to resist, and the Widow knows she faces the most serious threat to her dominance. Interwoven through the action are sea shanties and folk ballads – we get the sense that music acts as a balm and comfort against the realities of life, as well as helping to bind the community together. As well as folk songs there is original music by Anna Buttery, Mylo McDonald, Bess Roche and Anna Pool, and an original song by Polly Wright. While not a musical, it would be fair to say that the play is suffused with music, and a lot of its power derives from the actors singing together.

Like a Grimm fairy tale before bowdlerisation, the story is uncompromising and at times deeply unsettling. It is acted with utter conviction by all three players – this really feels like it is their story. At times it feels like a re-enactment of an ancient tale, as though to ward it off – Hopkins has referred to it as ‘ritual theatre’ and there are many ritualistic elements here – the rope, the enchanted circle, the rhythmic tapping, the music and movement. It feels true to what life must have been like, and the ways people would have found to make their lives more bearable. If you succumb to its darkly magical powers, you may find yourself transported to another world, one which is as far from our comfortable twenty-first century existences as it is possible to imagine.

SALT is running at the Riverside Studios, 101 Queen Caroline Street, London W6 9BN until Sunday 15th March