"This story is like other stories. It is a story about love. All stories are about love. Stories are either about love and power or power and love."

The Deep Red Sea is a love story, told in words, and music. It’s about love… and power… and… love. It’s about loss… and pain… and growing. It is about the sea… and lies… and the act of creating. 

Megan Furniss wrote The Deep Red Sea in 2011 and has been waiting to perform a full performance of this prose poem. Here, long-time collaborator Tandi Buchan directs with musical accompaniment by James Harvey.

The Deep Red Sea is an exploration of the facets and phases love, as well as an exploration of narrative form. Megan says, “I believe this piece is meant to be listened to, to be heard. The words should be a trigger into the visual, both literally and metaphorically.”

Megan Furniss is a playwright, writer, performer and improviser. Her work is original, challenging and strange, which is why her relationship with the Alexander Bar and Theatre is so special – an intimate venue that encourages experimentation and a departure from the mainstream. 

Megan Furniss is a South African born playwright, actor, writer, director and improviser. She has spent all of her life involved in theatre and make-believe. She graduated from the University of Cape Town in 1986 and worked as an actress before starting her own improvisation troupe in Cape Town. She has written and co-written numerous plays and musicals, performed and directed theatre, and she creates industrial theatre with her company Improvision. Megan loves improvisation the most, and performs regularly with ImproGuise, and teaches and facilitates improv.

She has self-published a novel, has just finished her second one, and she writes short stories for competitions.

The Tent, written in 2009, was published in an anthology of South African and Argentinian plays by Projecto 34˚ South, and was chosen as one of six African plays to be workshopped and showcased at the National Theatre Studio in London in 2011. Drive with Me, a one-woman show written and performed by Megan Furniss, won a Standard Bank Ovation Award at the prestigious Grahamstown National Arts festival in 2013. Most recently her play Clouds Like Waves premiered at the NYC Winter Festival 2019. 

Megan won a Fleur du Cap award for Innovation in Theatre in 2009. In 2017 she was nominated for a Fleur du Cap for best supporting actress in The Finkelsteins are Coming to Dinner.

She also achieved critical acclaim for her tiny role in the Showmax smash hit Tali’s Wedding Diary.

Audience Responses

An intense but beautifully worded piece.

Twas brilliant - what a talented performer and what an absolute gift it was to us, especially being a small audience and feeling the intimacy of our little show!

Very wonderful. Lighting a bit troubling. At times some spots were very uncomfortable for my eyes.

Loved the concept, staging, script and LOVED Megan Furniss, fantastic performance , completely relatable.

I highly recommend it. The set design is minimal, yet beautiful and sophisticated in its design which is a combination of lighting, sound and a single projected, slowly moving image. Amidst this is a single storyteller, Megan, tells and performs a story which gripped my imagination and had me listening to her while at the same time visualising what she was saying. I was transported.

Captivating!

I highly recommend it. The set design is minimal, yet beautiful and sophisticated in its design which is a combination of lighting, sound and a single projected, slowly moving image. Amidst this is a single storyteller, Megan, tells and performs a story which gripped my imagination and had me listening to her while at the same time visualising what she was saying. I was transported.