Dudendance: Borderlands

The Scottish Borders somehow make it very easy to forget the turmoil and violence of its past. The countryside is lush, the hills softly roll between the market towns, and little old ladies in twinsets and pearls can still find soup and pudding lunches, and teashops that ‘do a good scone.’ Ruins are lovingly tended in their decay, their well-kept lawns, guided pathways, safety barriers and polished, informative plaques do much to further stifle any emotional connection or response to the centuries of sacking, slaughter, and burning, the heat and chaos that marked the Scottish wars of independence.

Dryburgh Abbey, venue for Summerhall’s site specific hosting of Dudendance’s Borderlands is the resting place of Sir Walter Scott. It is also the resting place of Earl Douglas Haig, the controversial British commander who ordered the Somme offensive which brought about the deaths of 20,000 British soldiers in its first day. The detail quietly underscores that the process and consequence of warfare is far from merely historic.

Borderlands performs the balancing act of seeking to speak directly to the brutality and bloodshed that brought about both the building and subsequent destruction of the Borders’ numerous abbeys, while doing so in a style that acknowledges and accepts the contemporary tranquillity that tends to mark these locations.

Twelve white, silent, figures, arranged strategically across the site, proceed slowly through cycles of scripted movement. Their ghostly flags crackle in the wind as they invoke armoured standard bearers primed for battle. But all too soon the cycle progresses and the figures slowly fall. Their armour softens. The figures become weakened mourners draped over headstones. Momentarily still they themselves become stone. Then they begin the process of rising again, wandering ghostlike among the torn walls and archways, looking, it seems, to recover some cause for action. Heather MacCrimmon has developed an ingeneously effective costume solution here that allows figures to present as male or female, flesh or stone, dressed or armoured, depending only upon the context of the performers movement.

Moments arise where the figures fall into alignment and the stones of the abbey, it seems, begin to sing. Hidden in the shadows, the Andante Chamber Choir begin the Requiem Mass by Tomas Luis de Victoria while figures ascend from the abbey crypt. It all, fleetingly, becomes a formal theatrical presentation on a grand scale, with small episodes occurring on the grass before us, among the trees behind the abbey wall, off to the stream to the right, and above the makeshift proscenium suggested by the crumbling arches and pillars. And then, just as soon, the elements disperse and we are, to some extent, left to proceed very much in the manner of the costumed figures: proceeding slowly through the space with little indication as to what comes next.

There were two ways to experience this most curious of productions. One could have been a visitor to the abbey who chanced upon the spectacle, or one could have been one of the ticketed festival-goers who had assembled at Summerhall to be escorted by bus to the site.

And it is here that there was a problem. Clea Wallis directed the performers, choir, and media elements with a sensitive restraint and empathy for the location. She was, however, unable – through no fault of her own – to direct her audience, who seemed more interested in holding up their iPads to take endless pictures, stand where they were asked not to stand, and make loud vocal inquiries about the return time for the bus.

It remains a mystery to me why, when placed into an evocative location on a stunning afternoon and faced with a thoughtful spectacle that somehow bridged landscape, sculpture, and performance, and that asked only that you take time out of your day to pause, reflect, and meditate on the history and form of these landscape elements… why you would choose to do so via the cracked screen of your iPad, or your camera viewfinder. It did occur to me as I watched three unrelated audience members simultaneously flick through the galleries of their hand-held devices to immediately upload pics to their Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram accounts, that they were, in fact, less present, less real, than the ghostly flag bearers and widows.

Frustrating, depressing even, as this aspect was to the day, it is the cameo moments themselves, the sounds of a hidden choir, and the alignment of stone, figure, and landscape, always bound to each other, endlessly falling, endlessly struggling towards uprising that remains. A curious dream for sure.

Triple Fish: Faust

This production of the classic tale of a magician and a demon begins with five young men of highly stylised appearance – theatrical costumes of black and white, faces painted in bold two-tone, rubber gloves of pastel pinks and blues – laying out the scenario with text and physical theatre performed with energy and pace. In their hands are handheld LED torches. Throughout the performance this ensemble/chorus use the torches, their bodies, voices, and gloves as incidental characters, props, and furniture to support the unfolding story of the three protagonists. This is a cast of post-A-level teenagers who work well to deliver and dust off an old classic.

When Mephistopheles appears, played by Steffan Evans, his costume sets up an immediate strong contrast and while he may only be Satan’s representative, in his red ecclesiastical outfit and goatee, his assured, powerful, and highly controlled performance feels like an homage to the fallen angel. Faust, played by Akshay Khanna, is a contrast in blue robes. Playing an old man with a high energy delivery is a challenge for the young actor and it is a relief when he regains his youth. The play really takes off though with the appearance of the only female performer, Taylor Hanson as Gretchen, and the romance that follows plays a prominent part in this adaptation by one of the staff at the school.

This production benefits from the limitations that the cast and creatives have imposed upon themselves. By using only words, bodies, rubber gloves, musical instruments, and torches, they inventively create the world of the play and it is this combined with the impressive performances of the three leads that carries the show.

The Flanagan Collective: Fable

I arrive a minute late, and enter the space as Veronica Hare is already powering up in this spoken word, music, and slide show performance, but she finds time to help me get settled and find a seat even while introducing the character of J – a young high school physics teacher struggling to get by in the Midlands, but with stars in her eyes. Accompanied by Jim Harbourne on a loop pedal mixing his electric guitar riffs, percussion, and vocals, this performance is at first carried by her passionate delivery of the world of J, her mixed life of hardship, hopes, and dreams.

The shows tells the tale of J’s decision to chase a message from a dating app to the far coast of Scotland, using slides and fragments of staging to recreate scenes and conversations of the meetings between J and the man she goes to see, who is inspired by a man called Blair that the performers met in a pub on the far coast of Scotland. What is gradually drawn out is the sense both of the massive differences between these two people – their personalities, their environments, their attitudes, their engagements with life, nature and technology – and the understanding that these contrasts don’t appear all that different after all when viewed from as an epic – from the perspective of the distant stars.

This wonderful, inspiring work manages to work together physics with poetry, good musicianship with impressive spoken word, the immensity of the universe with annoying local planning in tiny rural towns. Created to be staged in rural venues, pubs, and similar unsupported spaces, continuing the company’s experiments with their touring model in previous show Beulah, this piece could bring a tear to the eye of the most hardened local drinker.

Marc Brew Company: For Now, I am

The vast stage at Zoo Southside is covered by white silk, the outline of a lone body enveloped by it. Images of lapping water melt into the swathes of white. Is the body a corpse? Is it floating peacefully in the water? Coupled with the water’s sound and by delicate piano notes, it is mesmerising, lulling and haunting all at once. The body is that of Marc Brew, a dancer who woke up in a hospital bed paralysed following a car accident. The doctors told him he would never walk again. For Now, I am vividly depicts his story of rebuilding his body.

It is a painfully beautiful performance. The silk sheet is pulled to reveal Brew’s upper body fighting to move, valiantly driving forward. Andy Hammer’s lighting picks out the tiniest details within the vast setting – a finger twitching, darting eyes, the panicked breath of the man’s bare chest rising and falling. Brew’s detailed and subtle choreography draws us into his psyche. His muscles ripple as he pushes himself up and I find myself urging him on. Jamie Wardrop’s visuals of water and circular patterns gently echo the sinews of Brew’s body as he slides his body across the stage, wrapping himself in the swathes of silk and pushes himself onwards.

It’s a quietly grueling performance that never wallows in self-pity. Instead it is a passionately expressive experience that powerfully portrays the loneliness, struggles, and beauty of recovery and rediscovery.

NT Gent / Les Ballets C de la B: En Avant, Marche!

En Avant, Marche! had me at ‘Hello’. A portly, grey haired man shuffles onstage holding a portable CD player. He wanders offstage and pulls in an extension cable, plugs in his CD player, skips to the right track, takes a pair of cymbals, and prepares to join in at the right moment. The anticipation is immense. The gentle humour beautifully human. But it takes too long – he puts his cymbals down and skips through the track to hurry the process up. When he finally arrives at the right moment he lovingly beats his drum. The joy, passion, and pathos rings through those cymbals.

The entire performance hums with this humanity. The man, played with utter conviction by Wim Opbrouck, is ill. A white bandage below his neck means that he can no longer play the trombone; he can no longer march with his band. We follow Opbrouck as he summons musicians from a marching band to the stage to replay his beloved pieces of Beethoven, Verdi, and Strauss. But there are many empty chairs – the vacant lots of people who have already disappeared from the group. In a wonderful moment, all of the chairs become occupied by the fully-uniformed local Dalkeith and Monktonhall Brass Band. The thirty-strong band join with the company’s musicians, moving in slow motion through the maze of chairs to find their place. It’s like a sea of never-ending hope. And when they play it is sublime. Opbrouck races through them all after their first number, galvanized by the passionate playing. He asks a few of them what they do for a living – an IT consultant, a civil servant, a cake-maker and a solicitor all form part of this evening’s band; all coming together to give us this divine music, and give Opbrouck one final march.

Dancer Hendrik Lebon flings himself across the stage as he embodies the younger incarnation of Opbrouck’s aging character, with a passion and zest for life, love, and music that is utterly exhilarating. There is a thrilling sequence when he and drummer Witse Lemmons roll around on the stage, thrashing into each other but never stopping the rhythmical drumming, whether it’s on each others shoes, stray microphone stands, or the wooden floor. Two glamorous blonde women in their 60s portray Opbrouck’s lovers. Dressed in gold sequins their baton-twirling is magnificent (and again full of pathos). Their zest for life slowly gives way to their fear of losing him, their utter despair ringing through the auditorium just as vividly as a lone trumpet howling to the moon. Directors Frank Van Laeke and Alain Plaitel have taken the metaphor of a marching band as a community and created a moving and life-affirming performance that fizzes with heartbreaking moments and hilarious insights into a life passing by.

Total Theatre