Author Archives: Beccy Smith

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About Beccy Smith

Beccy Smith is a freelance dramaturg who specialises in developing visual performance and theatre for young people, including through her own company TouchedTheatre. She is passionate about developing quality writing on and for new performance. Beccy has worked for Total Theatre Magazine as a writer, critic and editor for the past five years. She is always keen to hear from new writers interested in developing their writing on contemporary theatre forms.

Fine Chisel Theatre: 4.3 Miles from Nowhere

Fine Chisel Theatre: 4.3 Miles from Nowhere

Fine Chisel Theatre: 4.3 Miles from Nowhere

4.3 Miles from Nowhere is a collaboration between a group of four theatre-makers and a five-strong folk band. The company wish to explore ways these forms can work together to produce work with a festival audience in mind. This, their second show, sets up a somewhat literal approach to throwing the two forms together by having the action instigated by a musician-trickster leading the teenager to a friend’s party out in the countryside. When the car runs out of petrol and the satnav fails the group are stranded ‘4.3 miles’ from a destination none of them have made note of.

It’s a nice, if somewhat derivative, set-up, but the drama progresses falteringly between different styles and dramatic modes. At times naively romantic, at others feeling like the set-up for a teen schlock horror, pausing to break into song or abstract choreography before returning to rather heavy-going naturalism (complete with lovingly constructed fake wood fire), what aims to be progressive collaboration instead becomes rather soupy and unclear. The tone felt decidedly odd, with musician-philosopher Lucas sometimes feeling like he’d wandered in from another story – both more adult and decidedly more louche, somewhere between a seedy Cliff Richard in Summer Holidayand Garth from Wayne’s World. I spent some time waiting for this characterisation to translate into something more sinister, but when the pay-off comes it feels thrown away.

The core emotional narrative, of a young couple committing to one another despite class differences was so crudely drawn as to feel slightly surreal (one works front of house of her father’s garage whilst the other has a chauffeur-driven Jag and a helicopter). There were moments that evoked Shakespearian comedy (with two sets of couples lost in the forest, shades of Midsummer Night’s Dream were ever present), but too often the company felt like they were attempting a story interesting as an idea but whose emotional content they couldn’t thoughtfully follow through. The performances, though, were committed and there were some nice touches to the characterisation, particularly from ‘second’ couple Sam and Molly, whose romance teeters charmingly between horny and insecure.

There were moments that transcended the general production, and these were where the music took centre-stage. Nine part harmony folk singing is a rare treat in theatre of this scale and you could glimpse the scale of this company’s ambition. But they have further still to travel to bring it fully to fruition.

www.finechisel.co.uk

The Mechanical Animal Corporation: Und ¦ Photo: Alex Brenner

The Mechanical Animal Corporation: Und

The Mechanical Animal Corporation: Und ¦ Photo: Alex Brenner

Bristol-based The Mechanical Animal Corporation have transferred their production of Howard Baker’s play from a warehouse-like space in their hometown to a dingy room in C Soco’s basement, and it’s a context that suits it rather better I should think. The dank room with uneven concrete floor and ceiling plugged by gaffered on pieces of corrugated card contrasts powerfully with the grandeur of the protagonist, Und, an ‘artistocrat’ who teeters about in gloves, heels and a tightly corseted dress promising a sort of tea ceremony for a guest who never comes. She is increasingly menaced by threats from the outside world – endlessly ringing bells, images of violence, smashing glass – as it becomes clear that the suitor she idolises and who is probably just outside, is a Nazi and she herself a Jew. Barker’s poetry in this extensive monologue is an excavation of delusion and slowly builds a momentum of unease that feels claustrophobic and genuinely frightening.

The sense of both ceremony and poised vulnerability is heightened by a set, taken from the Wrestling School’s original production, that uses a number of sheets of brushed metal suspended on fine cords from the rig as gently swinging surfaces which hold almost all of the props. Resonating with a repeated segment of text that refers to weapons slicing through the air as our unseen romantic lead walks calmly forward through them, their fragility and threat is heightened by a clever, if inconsistent sound design (Matt Chilton) which is at its best when using real objects such as the chilly whistle of sharpening knives to deepen our focus on the delicately balanced objects in the room. (It wasn’t clear to me why only some of the sound design was performed live.) Anna Barrett’s light design merits particular mention, making inventive use of rigged and handheld lanterns to work richly on atmosphere, tone and shadow.

But the translation into a smaller space has also caused the company problems. There are times when Annette Chown (Und)’s impressively sustained performance of hysteria and self-deception feels out-of-scale and rather relentlessly shrill. Further, the creeping stage managers sometimes felt ridiculously visible – there’s nowhere to hide in a traverse staging and its better not to try: all the text’s ambiguity about whether the protagonist was really alone in the house surely afforded some more interesting play on how these stage hands were deployed.

Elegant and chilling, this competent and atmospheric production of one of Barker’s challenging plays shows some flashes of brilliant theatricality, and the text’s dense poetry and rich ideas ensure an intensely memorable performance.

www.mechanimal.wordpress.com

The Wrong Crowd: The Girl with the Iron Claws

The Wrong Crowd: The Girl with the Iron Claws

The Wrong Crowd: The Girl with the Iron Claws

The Girl with the Iron Claws is the first production from The Wrong Crowd, a collaboration between puppet-maker and designer Rachael Canning and writer and director Hannah Mulder. The influence of a maker at the core of the process is much in evidence in the effortlessly aesthetic set: a striking pair of brass spindly ‘claws’ is lit on a plinth centre-stage as we come in, flanked by four old wooden ladder ‘trees’ topped by hat-stand ‘branches’ and glittering dully with an array of old fashioned hooks and tools. The evocative naturalistic mask of the show’s key puppet figure – an enormous white bear conjured by mask and a single paw – are also stunningly designed and constructed. The effective use of this technique to conjure this and the main antagonist figure, an over-sexed troll princess, allows for some exciting shifts in scale that support and enliven the piece’s ambitious storytelling.

The company’s stated aim is to ‘reinvigorate some of the wild old stories’ and this is certainly not a fairytale I‘ve encountered before. Any elements of surprise though were tempered by its many stock traits – ugly jealous sisters, a doting father, a transformed hero, and mystical repetition in three parts. Though the direction kept the pace lively and largely managed to avoid the tediousness of such a structure, I couldn’t shake the feeling that, for all its slickness, I didn’t know why the company were telling me this story. Where was the urgency in choosing this one to stage?

The cast of four offer nicely controlled performances, that scroll through a diverse range of physical and vocal characterisations with some strong comedic turns and some powerfully throaty singing that further lifts the dynamism of the whole.

But there are one or two production lapses. For some reason the aesthetic sense of the production so lavishly developed elsewhere collapses in the puppet children that critically people the second half of the storytelling. These are constructed from yellow foam and plastic tubing, the visual antithesis of the rest of the staging’s rich natural tones, and they are too jointed for one person to effectively manipulate, leading to some scrappy puppetry. Elsewhere, a moment that feels intended to transcend – when three performers take on the beautifully made feet of the polar bear to execute a cross country run – fails to hit its mark as the legs are all out of rhythm. I also really wanted to see the set used more – a curtain threaded on the diagonal effectively supports some visual surprises and everything is elegantly choreographed, but at times the set feels more decorative than functional. These are nitpicking points, in what is overall an enjoyable and professionally produced first show, but a company being lauded for demonstrating the hipness of visual theatre tropes to a new generation of theatre-makers and audiences should be pushed to really show what the form can do.

www.wrongcrowdtheatre.co.uk

The Frequency d’Ici: Free Time Radical

The Frequency d’Ici: Free Time Radical

The Frequency d’Ici: Free Time Radical

This slow-burning and poignant new drama by the artists formerly known as Top of the World (responsible for 2008’s Fringe First Award-winningPaperweight) shows the company confidently deepening their unique focus on the challenges of what it is to be human, and particularly male, in the modern world. The production is grounded in powerfully nuanced performances from Sebastien Lawson and Tom Frankland, two thirty-something guys who have escaped (on a surf board) tidal waves battering the UK and are now attempting to pass the time before their food runs out in Ali (Lawson)’s bachelor flat. If this sounds serious that’s because it’s one of the only shows I’ve seen at this year’s Fringe genuinely attempting to process through performance real and complex issues that connect our psychological and political selves. This is thoughtful, challenging drama, but it’s also constantly surprising, emotionally rich and, unusually for devised work, moves delicately through a twisty and convincing narrative. And it’s punctuated by some great gags.

The story’s weird twists and turns are strongly complemented by Cis O’Boyle’s unsettling and lurid light design, pushing the strangeness of this very recognisable world. As the story progresses we move increasingly away from the realism suggested by James Lewis’ imposing set and the comforting backdrop of Radio 4 (even if it is reporting on the apocalypse) and deeper into richly ambiguous psychological territories encompassing identity, aggression, fear and hope. The production’s opening sequence is a sweet animation (by Magali Charrier) projected onto the set introducing each character. They begin naked and we watch them cycle through different everyday clothes, pastimes, and finally inner anxieties and constrictions. By the end, the projection returns, now amplified to fill a whole back-wall screen (cleverly completed by the insertion of Ali’s surf board), its perspective spinning out and out until we are observing the tiny acts of fear, frustration and desperation played out on a global canvas. And, impressively, the company earn this shift in scale, these two contemporary every-men, both believing in better, both on the run, bringing to life a state of being that resonates and challenges us.

Playful, searingly honest and making a serious attempt to address profound and complex ideas, this was my pick of the Fringe this year. Powerful, provocative stuff, beautifully played.

www.thefrequencydici.co.uk

Blind Summit: The Table

Blind Summit: The Table

Blind Summit: The Table

Proving the unholy combination of cabaret laughs, top quality puppetry and a late-night vibe is a stylish offer for the Fringe, Blind Summit’s new show returns to their roots – as seen in 2005’s breakthrough show Lowlife – by selling high-class puppetry to entranced Edinburgh crowds. There’s a lot of puppetry about on this year’s Fringe, conjuring bizarre and monstrous figures, peopling stories of wonderful new worlds or just bulking out a cast list otherwise too pricey for the small-scale; but this show doesn’t just employ puppetry, it’s about puppetry. It’s a brilliant idea to deconstruct the bunraku form (a term unfamiliar to most British audiences that refers to the detailed manipulation of a single figure, usually on a tabletop by three performers) by creating a play revolving around one isolated character whose fundamental obstacle is his table. In the first ten minutes we are given a definition of bunraku and an illustration of the core principles of effective animation (focus, fixed point, and breath, if you were wondering). And the story, such as it is, is constantly interrupted by demonstrations of formal grace and skill as the table is tilted and lifted, its length paced or used as a dancefloor as our figure executes some funky moves.

Make no mistake, this is a masterclass in puppetry skills – in particular it’s an absolute joy to watch company founders Mark Down (head and left hand) and Nick Barnes (feet) animating together in complete synergy and flow. If the third performer (right hand and bum Sean Garrat) occasionally looks a bit anxious this only heightens our awareness of the immense skilfulness we’re observing. But what employment is it being put to? The material is highly self-referential: the beautifully characterful cardboard head claims ‘my backstory is a box’ and despite tantalising hints of development suggested in his plea for recognition from the mysterious woman who sits at his table, the company revert too quickly to puppetry in-jokes and stylistic demonstration. It may be true that the evocative image of a woman crawling on all fours across the stage is inspired by Yves Klein, but I can’t help suspecting the image was constructed more as a pretext to illustrate puppetry skills as the old man is thrown about by her physical exertions. Likewise the scenario of a lone figure buffeted by powers beyond his control sits, as the company identify, in Beckett territory, but the focus on his plight seems too fleeting, too ready to slip into the next routine to really mine the philosophical or emotional depths of his situation.

This performance closes rather abruptly after 45 minutes and the show shifts into two further sketches, only thinly related to the first. We get more of a sense of the whole company of four working together in these sketches and they establish a pleasing gentle clowning presence, but it’s hard not to feel this work has been tacked on. Both sketches are skilful and entertaining, taking the show into different puppetry territory (the abstract animation of a number of the companies trademark heads and hands dancing in and out of up-lit picture frames in the style of European black-light theatre, and an animated storyboard sequence whose steadily emerging pieces of paper provide some comedic but no emotional backstory to the mysterious woman from the first sketch), but they lack the suggestion of depth the first piece at least reaches for.

Recently elevated to RFO status, Blind Summit aim to be puppetry innovators – but I feel they have further to travel here. I don’t think it was simply the hilarious Euro-pop soundtrack to the middle section that transported me onto the Continent. The company are certainly advancing the calibre of puppetry being presented in the UK – but what would really land them on the cutting-edge is to develop substance alongside style and employ their puppetry to talk to us about something.

www.blindsummit.com