Review by Simon Jenner, September 18 2025
***
Alex Eales’ set, lit neatly by Prema Mehta, confronts the single stacked audience. Two diminutive haystacks left and right are bisected by water tank and a range of items from chamois leathers to grapefruit and watermelon halves. Behind are two Foley artists and two actors facing outwards. Not a word is spoken throughout. Cow/Deer co-created by Katie Mitchell who directs, Nina Segal and sound artist Melanie Wilson arrives at Royal Court Upstairs till October 11.
The 55-minute piece is a recreation with live sound effects and recorded sound, of the perspectives of a Deer to start, soon alternating with a heavily pregnant Cow. Anthropomorphism is avoided where possible. Human speech on occasion is heard unintelligibly. Neither animal encounters the other, though Deer hears Cow from a distance. Their auditory worlds are otherwise discrete. The text tells us it’s a day in early August, from 5.30am to 5.30pm; so everything takes place in sunlight. If you don’t have the text though, you’ll know none of this.
Tatenda Matsvai. Photo Credit: Camilla Greenwell
We’re asked to listen rather than watch; and even if you close your eyes the olfactory assault of mint means it’s never entirely auditory. But watching the process of Foley artists – those who create sound effects like the close fluttering if a bird, or cow stamping trough a cowpat – is fascinating, often giving clues as to what’s being invoked. And keeps you alert. No praise can be too high for the two Foley actors Ruth Sullivan and Tom Espiner, and actors Pandora Colin and Tatenda Matsvai. Their attention, virtuosity and synchronisation is phenomenal.
We are for once literally an audience. “This can be thought of as feminist listening” Mitchell and her colleagues state in the collective preface. There’s other introductions by Wilson on Foley artists, and the politics of the piece. Climate change is emphasized but very little of that can be conveyed in what are very mundane happenings, events which wouldn’t be different in any temperate zone. Rain showers won’t convey the abnormal. There’s no forest fire.
What is more difficult to discern, unless you’ve read the text prior to performance, is what happens. One event later with the Deer is relatively straightforward, in two stages. The Cow’s labour though is only hinted: at the FOH declaration and card given out to audience members at the beginning. It doesn’t get realised with the effects here, however superb. The narrative needs some element of the visual. Anthropomorphism perhaps.
As a comment on climate change this experimental work conveys sadly nothing. And we certainly need more such works as the co-creators say. As an exercise in listening, in empathising to a degree with the non-verbal and close-up auditory experiences of two animals, it’s fascinating. As Mitchell et al declare, since we benefit from industrialised uteruses it certainly behoves us to open a space with the animals we share and exploit. To that degree this is memorable, riveting experimental theatre.
Tom Espiner and Tatwnda Matsvai. Photo Credit: Camilla Greenwell
What also remains beyond the four actors is the sheer variety of objects used to create authentic sounds. The switching between a tank of water and say a water bottle creating urination sounds, or the squelch of birthing or even defecation effects, are topped by the continual breaking of stiff grasses, the snapping of twigs and small white discs to create rasping sounds (Espiner). Again watching this occur and being hit by natural scents, is a memorable experience. And, given the visual, there’s ripples of laughter at the way effects are evoked.
Cow/Deer is brave and bold, and in essence alters those who pass through the Upstairs studio. The animal world is one of heightened auditory awareness. Here all natural sounds are amplified. On occasion they’re bisected by the recognisable trail of an aeroplane passing heedlessly overhead. Or a tracker, car or quad bike.
Where it fails is clarity of narrative. Endless varietal pitch can become samey and the calf birthing missed. It’s only the text that really alerts you. This is one text where you should read the first three quarters first (so not to encounter a spoiler). Though even there, reading it afterwards, one element became clear that hadn’t landed previously.
The other caveat lies in overstating Cow/Deer’s remit. This piece nominally addresses climate change in its introduction, where sadly nothing of that could be conveyed in the theatre, given conceptual constraints: unless there were continual forest fires or audible catastrophes. Which as disasters can potentially be evoked from a cow or deer’s perspective. Another strand though, the “feminist listening” emerges triumphant. This is emphatically theatre worth doing, worth attending, worth fighting to clarify and worth being changed for. If you’re at all curious about where theatre goes next, this is one strand you shouldn’t miss.
Associate Sound Designer and Operator Marie Zschommler, Casting Director Saffeya Shebli, Production Manager Marius Ronning, Company Manager Mica Taylor, Lead Producer Charlie Bunker, Costume Supervisor Karen Hopkinson, Executive Producer Steven Atkinson, Assistant Production Manager Tiffany Ledesma, Stage Manager Louise Quartermain, DSM Lucy Bradford.
Ruth Sullivan. Photo Credit: Camilla Greenwell
