Author Archives: Dorothy Max Prior

About Dorothy Max Prior

Dorothy Max Prior is the editor of Total Theatre Magazine, and is also a performer, writer, dramaturg and choreographer/director working in theatre, dance, installation and outdoor arts. Much of her work is sited in public spaces or in venues other than regular theatres. She also writes essays and stories, some of which are published and some of which languish in bottom drawers – and she teaches drama, dance and creative non-fiction writing. www.dorothymaxprior.com

Somnambules & The 7 Deadly Sins

A game show that descends from a quest for the glittering prizes to an inhumane and degrading spectacle; some perverse partner dancing that ricochets from a twisted Tango to a slewed Swing; a surreal ballet with a mirror; a manic tug-of-war; a camp-fire tribal striptease; and a dreamy film landscape that suggests an Arcadia elsewhere…

Come on down, contestants, the price is right! Leave the material world behind and search for a universe in an atom; an eternity in the ticking of the Countdown clock…

Russian actor/dancer Tanya Khabarova (now resident in Italy), a founder member of the legendary Derevo, and long-term collaborator and former Derevo performer Yael Karavan (formerly of Israel, France, Italy, Russia, Brazil, Japan and now resident in the UK) have joined forces to create a new show together: ‘We feel the need to react to an unstable world and a life devoid of values where money and power have taken the place of conscience and sensitivity… a world in which the media and television have become our new gods.’

And so here it is. As we enter the performance space, we are sporting numbers stuck on our lapels. We sit to the sound of canned applause, and a game-show host’s cloying welcome booms over the PA. We wait to hear who will be chosen. I’m 723, and it’s not me. The lucky two are a young couple who take to the stage blinking uncomfortably into the spotlight. Of course, it is Tanya and Yael. Fix, fix! Yael plays a clownish version of a nervous young woman, the newly married girl-next-door. She fiddles with the lock of hair coming loose, and pulls her skirt down, showing her teeth in a trying-too-hard smile. The shaven-headed Tanya is completely believable as her ‘husband’, capturing the nervous machismo of the young male wanting to do his best. The slight twitch of the neck and shoulders, the brace of the legs, the glances at his woman, and the bravura face to the ‘camera’ – all note-perfect.

The game begins – a series of tasks and challenges released from a pile of numbered cardboard boxes; a kind of ‘seven deadly sins’ quest for further and deeper degradation that could also be seen as a descent through the circles of hell to the final abyss. ‘Lust’ brings a tortured tangle of limbs as bodies grapple to gain supremacy. ‘Greed’ sees a vaudevillian tussle over a wad of banknotes in a back pocket. ‘Vanity’ we presume is the aforementioned mirror-ballet, in which the ‘wife’s’ head becomes eerily replaced by the mirror held over it. There is an Adam-and-Eve reference in a gluttonous battle for an apple, and inevitably there is a gun. And, of course, once a gun enters a story…

The performance from both actors is beautiful, extraordinary – it’s a match made in heaven, and the unique physicality and ability of each, further enhanced by their shared history and jointly held ‘toolbox’ of physical theatre skills, makes for a mesmerising stage presence and onstage relationship. Each of the scenes, with its inherent tasks and battles, gives an opportunity for an intoxicating play between these two magnetic performers.

I’m a little less excited by the game-show frame for the piece. The game-show motif is a popular one right now: see, for example, the enormous success ofThe Hunger Games (a series of dystopian novels for teenagers, recently filmed); the Japanese story on a similar theme, Battle Royale; and Chuck Palahniuk’s new short story, Loser. Apart from the game-show-battle-to-the-death cultural phenomenon there is also, of course, a very obvious precedent for the daytime TV show send-up in Jerry Springer: The Opera. I cite these examples to say that although Somnambules is of course its own unique self, some careful thought could perhaps be given to how important the framing of the game-show is, and if it is considered key, then how this could be developed further in a new way. There is a danger in parodying cliché! In particular, a mock-interval ‘word from our advertisers’ feels a little tired, and the fact that although we get drawn into ever-more-surreal circles of imaginary worlds, I am slightly unsure if the game ever gets properly resolved. It is, no doubt, a deliberately ambivalent ending, but having been pulled into the action (albeit quite minimally) at the beginning, it seems odd to end without being pulled out again.

But it is early days yet for this show, as this was the premiere of the piece, and it will no doubt undergo many transformations over its next stage of development. The key thing though is the power of the performances, the strength of the onstage relationship, and the beauty of so many of the scenes – with work on the structure and framing, this’ll be a knock-out show. Game, set and match to play for!

www.yaelkaravan.com

Upswing: Red Shoes

Red shoes! High heels! As I write those words I know they will set your heart and mind racing with images and associations.

Shoes, in many and various fairytales, denote transformation, and often signify the awakening of female sexuality, the burden of full-blown sexuality descending on the growing female body, and the escape from the shackles of the father into the shackles of the lover. There’s Cinderella’s glass slipper, the twelve princesses with their gold dancing shoes, worn out nightly – and of course Hans Christian Andersen’s red shoes. They are all coming-of-age stories, and paint complex soul pictures – but in The Red Shoes, the dancing shoes, with their usual associations of sexuality and feminine freedom and rebellion, become a terrible and oppressive burden.

In their show Red Shoes, Upswing take associations and references from Andersen’s tale, but mix these with imagery from other archetypal stories – most notably Red Riding Hood, which in its archaic version pulls no punches about being a story about the loss of virginity.

The set is a square floorspace carpeted with Virginia Creeper leaves, deep autumnal reds. Eleven or twelve tall poles make a forest, with stretches of clingfilm wound between them. Enter two young women in dungarees, sporting ponytails and red hoodies.

So, the wordless story we get is of the lust for, and the act of striving to win, the red shoes, which are to be found blossoming like flowers atop two of the poles; the angsty, antsy dance that the shoes bestow on their bearer-wearers; the entanglement in the wild forest; and the escape from the burden of the shoes – although in this version, there is a kind of ambivalent one-shoe-on one-shoe-off resolution. The relationship between the two female characters is played out nicely throughout the piece, as they move from innocent sisterhood into sexual rivalry (via the shoes) and out into mature friendship.

The poles are used, of course, to represent forest trees, for climbing up and swinging from (just three or four are true circus-style Chinese Poles, the others being décor) and these two female performers are good strong climbers and swingers. I find myself noting that within circus-theatre practice (as opposed, say, to pole dancing!) pole work is more often than not associated with male acrobats rather than female aerialists, with a focus on a typically masculine upper-body strength, and it is interesting to observe how very differently the pole work here is to much that I’ve seen in other circus productions. There is (obviously, considering the nature of the tale) a lot of emphasis on held leg-lines and poised feet. The movement work – solo and doubles at various different points in the show – is fluid and graceful, and at times the poles seem to almost melt into silks.

The clingfilm earns its keep in an exciting corseting cum bondage scene of tangling and wrapping, as each of the young women, running through the ‘forest’ helter-skelter in her new red shoes, spins and turns the film around her body. The shoes themselves are truly lovely, and I see more than one little (and not-so-little) girl in the audience looking lustfully at the beribboned red footwear as it waves aloft at the end of a well-turned leg.

All-in-all a very nicely realised piece of new circus-theatre work. It’s a pretty simple narrative, prettily done. There is perhaps more that could be done with the Red Shoes / Red Riding Hood theme (see, for example, the various works by Kneehigh that use the same source material) and it might be good to see a little more of the dark side of these tales creep in – but what’s presented is all well and good. A word here also for the soundtrack, which creates just the right mix of whimsicality, fairytale wonder and slight eeriness.

Seeing the piece inside a shopping centre on a busy Saturday afternoon didn’t seem like the ideal setting – this is far from the company’s fault, but I found the way that that the carefully-designed set was squeezed into a space also occupied (on three levels, and thus right at the top of the poles’ height as well as at floor level) by multi-coloured balloons, shop fronts and plastic signage a little bit disconcerting. But such is the nature of street arts and performance in public spaces – whatever aesthetic chosen has to somehow accept that it will be placed next to all sorts of inappropriate other things. It’s just I suppose that outdoors at least the poles, nicely decorated with foliage and the ‘nests’ of shoes, would at least have stood out against the sky. However, given the weather in Winchester this Hat Fair weekend – and the fact that almost all of the planned outdoor shows got delayed, abridged or cancelled – we should be grateful that Upswing got programmed into a shopping centre!

www.upswing.org.uk

Bootworks Theatre: Predator

So, you know the 80s action movie Predator? The one with Arnie in, about an alien stalker who picks off a load of butch blokes one by one when they stray off the beaten path into the deepest depths of the South American jungle? You don’t? Neither did I, which some might consider a disadvantage for an audience member attending maverick theatre company Bootworks’ latest wheeze, an interactive performance by Andy Roberts in which his childhood dream of finally getting to the end of a blow-by-blow re-enactment of Predatoris finally realised. Luckily, it is all a jolly good and entertaining romp, regardless of whether you get the film refs or not. I’m just glad I wasn’t called upon to be one of the three audience members to take starring, multi-character roles in the action, as I don’t think I would have done Dutch and Billy and Poncho justice – although I think I made a pretty good brief appearance as a restless jaguar stalking the jungle, even if I do say so myself.

So, let’s rewind a bit. Andy is doing this because when he was a little boy, he and his big brother used to sneak downstairs after bedtime and watchPredator, then act it out obsessively the next day – gun battles, grenade attacks, ferocious tearing apart of victims limb-by-limb, the lot. But they never got to the end, to the bit (‘spoiler alert’) where the cyborg predator gets beaten; there was always school or homework or tea getting in the way. And one day, his brother went to big school, and got more interested in ‘Liverpool FC and boobies’ than in playing war games, so that was that.

The film is acted out with great vim and vigour and enough amusing asides to entertain those of us who have little idea of what the hell is going down. As the mother of three sons (the eldest not that much younger than Andy), the role of the show’s absent character, the boys’ mother, struck a chord: ‘Christmas morning and we wanted guns, guns, guns. And what did we get? Rubik cubes!’ Ah yes, I remember clearly the gun ban, enforced by all well-meaning feminist mothers in the 80s – thwarted in my household by a seven-year-old who spent his very first pocket money in the Poundshop buying a cop gun, badge and handcuffs set. Boys will be boys will be boys will be boys, it was always thus so and will probably ever be, regardless of what the mums might wish for – and the Bootworks boys are playing with this platitude to great comic effect.

The visual aesthetic for the show is (not surprisingly) super-low-tech: a blow-up palm tree and a paddling pool filled with bouncy balls, a batch of cardboard signs, an economy bag of plastic soldiers, and a joke shop Predator costume – with a few Anglepoise lamps and a clickety-click slideshow of family snapshots illuminating the action. Special mention also to the remote-control toy ’copter that plays a crucial role in the proceedings.

It is all strung together very nicely, Andy handles his helpers with due care and attention, and keeps it all moving at a cracking pace, the only drop being a ‘snack break’ section that falls a little flat, despite the cheese strings and Mother’s Pride sarnies.

Audience was key in this show – well, it is in any show but you know what I mean. As well as our three supporting ‘actors’, who fill in for Andy’s absent brother (too tied up with Dad duties to come out and play, although Andy did try to get him in, calling him on a Fisher-Price toy telephone – a nice touch), the rest of us get to be swaying palm trees, or parrots, or – did I mention what a good jaguar I made?

The Basement’s intimate space, The Pit, was the perfect setting for this show – packed in to capacity and up close, there was no choice but to be involved. It was great also to go to a ‘main programme’ Brighton Festival show that had a high proportion of young adult males in the audience – a demographic more likely to be found in the comedy clubs than theatre and performance art venues. Brownie points for Bootworks and The Basement for bringing in new audiences to contemporary theatre!

www.bootworkstheatre.co.uk

Made in China: We Hope That You’re Happy (Why Would We Lie?)

Presented under the auspices of ‘east. by. south. east’, a collaboration between key venues in those two regions, Made in China’s We Hope That You’re Happy (Why Would We Lie?) is a strange beast, in the best sort of way – an interesting mix of new writing and physically embodied, really there, live art performance. It took me a while to be won over, but won over I was by the time we got to the end.

But wait, let’s start at the very beginning…

As we enter the space, we see a young female performer standing on a table, bare-legged and dressed only in a black nylon underslip. Gestures of self-consciousness, if not actual awkwardness – pouts, nervous smiles, tugs on the underslip, etcetera. Once we are seated, a young male performer enters, looking straight out of the 80s – all Bowie-inspired trews and braces, black shirt and tousled hair. Our two performers use their real names (Jes and Chris) onstage – and who is to say what this means in this play between truth and fiction? A stylised dialogue starts up, a kind of litany listing truths, half-truths and lies – and who is to know which is which? Trivialities and things of monumental importance sit side-by-side – stolen ice-creams, hangovers, London tube bombings, thwarted picnic plans, a plane crashing into a city skyscraper… it’s all as important or as unimportant as you want to see it. Weaned on Forced Entertainment’s Speak Bitterness, I find myself thinking.

But as the piece progresses, the two performers settle into their onstage relationship – a kind of pseudo-sibling rivalry in storytelling, playing with the nuances of their real and imaginary relationship (in one moment they are claiming they were inseparable as children, and lived next door to each other, and the next minute we learn that she is American, but he is Canadian) – and really make the material their own as they spin a web of words around us. The words weave bigger and better webs – the real-life lies and made-up truths, false memories and true imaginations all mulching together beautifully.

The call and response listings of things seen, felt, laid claim to and lied about are punctuated by physical actions: an intermittent robotic dance sequence to ‘Rebel Rebel’, that returns and returns again at an ever-increasing pace; a drunken sway to ‘If I Had a Hammer’; a ritualistic dousing with flour, ketchup and water; and an endless number of ice lollies sucked, and beer cans opened, drunk from, and chucked aside. Ultimately, it’s a coming-of-age tale: if you had to define ‘adolescence’ it is surely the brief time in your life when ice cream and beer assume equal importance?

By the time we’ve reached the end, I feel that I’ve witnessed a very carefully written and effectively realised piece of theatre, words, physical actions and visual images all balanced beautifully – and in both performers (although perhaps particularly in Chris Bailey, who I was drawn to constantly in this production) seen evidence of a really special performance talent.

A mention also to off-stage company member Tim Cowbury, who is one of a growing number of young playwrights crossing the worn-thin dividing line between ‘new writing’ and ‘performance’ and who, with Jessica Latowicki, is the co-founder of Made in China.

www.madeinchinatheatre.com

Berlin Theatre Group: Land’s End

The Old Municipal Market is known locally as the former fruit and veg market. It’s a fine old space that’s seen better times: a great big, cold, dark and dripping hulk that has been the venue for many so-called ‘site-specific’ performances over the years, by both professional artists and ‘VPA’ (visual and performing arts) students from what the old-guard call the art school – otherwise known as the University of Brighton, which is right next door to the market.

What the Berlin Theatre Group – who are in fact from Belgium, not Berlin – are doing here with Land’s End is difficult to fathom. It is hard to think of an example of a potentially good show more inappropriately sited.

It is, in essence, a two-part piece. In part one, the audience are let loose in the warehouse and wander freely around, viewing a number of installations which reference a murder most foul. Some are obvious references: a section of a car with feet sticking out of the boot circles on a creaking turntable; a split-screen video depicts a man crashing down a staircase; a cranky conveyor belt sends a cup of coffee on an eternal circling journey, the coffee augmented by a sickly green powder. Other exhibits are more puzzling: a trough of goldfish with plugged-in hairdryers hanging over them, menacingly; a listening-post set around an onion-chopping contraption, that on the night I attend is one of a number of the mechanical structures that isn’t working properly. Coming close to the listening post, we hear a series of unanswered questions, related to the topics of personal relationship, anger management, and witnessing: How is your memory? Do you remember what you see or what you hear? How do you manage guilt manifested by others? Are marriages made in heaven? On the floor next to the onion-station is a sign that says ‘I never cry in public’. In one part of the market is a bank of seats and some free-standing film screens: ‘This section isn’t open,’ says an usher. ‘It is something secret.’

A not very well-kept secret as the impatient audience, bored with the installations and chattering loudly, have by now mostly gathered at this part of the market, waiting for the next thing to happen. A looped electronic soundtrack kicks in, and everyone crowds in to sit in the regular tiered theatre seating arrangement. Except that this is a freezing cold warehouse, not a theatre, so the next hour is marred by cold and discomfort, making it hard to appreciate what is presented.

And what is presented is good: a clever and interesting mix of live and filmed action, blurring distinctions between fiction and reality as the words of ‘real life’ on-screen interviewees, and live and screened actors, mix stories both banal and harrowing – all centred around reflections on the fate of a farmstead that sits on the border between France and Belgium. There is, for example, a bizarre story of how hard it is to get the roof fixed when half of it is in one country and half in another – one legislation granting permits immediately, the other taking six months; one allowing Velux windows, another forbidding them. Weaved into all these amusing odd-bod tales of life lived in two countries is the key story of a murder that took place in the border country, provoking all sorts of complicated legislative proceedings which are played out in the dining room of the borderline farmstead, requisitioned for the purpose – a line literally drawn down the middle of a table separating the two suspects, the victim’s wife (Belgian) and the alleged assassin she has hired (French), who are seated at each end, in separate countries as neither extradition for him nor border-crossing for her are possible. Less a recreation of a true-life event, although indeed based on a true story, the show is a clever deconstruction of the issues raised by the case, and the absurdities of the legal proceedings (the Belgian woman has to enter the house through a window as the door is in France; the French man has a portaloo so he doesn’t have to enter Belgium to use the toilet). References to Kafka are many and various in the company’s programme notes!

It’s a great story, the twists and turns of ‘what really happened’ worked through cleverly in tandem with the townsfolk’s reflections on living simultaneously in two countries, the issues of nuances of language, cultural differences, and miscommunication being key to the main story – this played out very nicely in all the intermingled texts in two languages, French and Flemish (with English surtitles adding another layer of meaning). Ultimately, it is less about the murder than about the relationship between the wife and the hired man – an exploration of communication and miscommunication, similarity and difference, saying and meaning.

Had I been seated in a warm and comfortable theatre – where this piece would most appropriately have been sited – I would have felt that I’d had a good theatrical experience. As it was, it was hard to separate my response to the work from my physical discomfort – the choice to put its audience into seating banks in a freezing cold warehouse seemed more bizarre than the stories that unfolded! And the linked installations, although amusing, ultimately added little to the main piece – turning out to be a kind of expose of the ‘thirteen ways to kill your lover’ scenario espoused in part two.

It seemed that the company and/or the Brighton Festival (who co-commissioned the piece) were seduced into the idea of creating a piece of work outside of a theatre space, without really thinking through what the relevance of the site was to the proposed piece, and how well the piece fitted this particular site. A common mistake made by many of those VPA students over the years – although one would hope that seasoned professionals would know better. Take the piece out of this site and it would be improved 100%.