Grief, “you can try to drown it, but you can be assured that the motherfucker will learn to swim”.

‘Drift’ is an exciting new work by budding playwrights Tara Clark and Kieran Foster. It’s a fairly intimate take on the process of losing a loved one in the throws of your early twenties, amidst a shifting scene of family, place and identity. In a series of short sharp scenes, the piece plays through the memories of five close friends in the aftermath of a terminal illness hitting one of their own.

The story focuses more on small experiences than plot which is made more interesting by the non-linear time frame. While you don’t get to spend enough solid time with the characters to get to know them well, their experience of the intense, confusing period is vibrant. The set drives this home with the stark and malleable arena framed by pieced together walls, used to show fractured projections. This constant shuffle through time and place engages you in an uncomfortable space between actions and emotion where you can’t tell what’s going to change until it already has. It’s riveting.

It’s rare that we get to hear the honest voices of millennials in a legitimate theatre space. The rapid changes, use of multimedia, and conversational speech are all stamps of modern communication, and ‘Drift’ used it with confident proficiency.