Dancing Brick theatre company’s Perle is an innovative and touching piece that explores a solitary man’s grief after the loss of his daughter. Adapted from a medieval poem, the oldest in the English language, the story is told in silence by Thomas Eccleshare, a solo performer with only a television, a VHS player and a pile of tapes. He enters the stage and his humble smile instantly warms us to him; he then puts tapes in the player and his words appear on the screen as he greets the audience.
We see him day to day, spending all his time watching a white circle on the screen, his Perle, as he grows isolated and ignores the outside world. The television provides black and white animation with which Eccleshare seamlessly interacts to great effect.
Eccleshare’s gentle smile however is what really sells the piece. It affords a contrast to the subject matter and avoids a mawkish depiction of grief. This contrast means that the moment when his smile fades are all the more potent and the gravity of the play really takes hold.
At times the use of the television can feel a little cumbersome and it keeps the pace very slow as the audience needs time to read and understand what appears on the screen. But the pace also reflects the character’s state of mind, stuck in memory and slow to move on.
There are also moments of audience involvement that feel a little strange. At one point I was given a piece of paper that asked me to come up on stage where I read another note that told me to stand and look lovingly at the screen from behind the TV. I presume the audience were watching a baby being born on the screen as I could hear an infant’s cry. The purpose and function of this interaction is not entirely clear; the effect is that we get to watch a member of the public on stage looking slightly uncomfortable while Eccleshare and the television tell the story. Also the sometimes crucial plot points are missed by the person onstage, who has difficulty catching up as a result.
But Eccleshare’s warm performance keeps the show together, and the emotional journey takes pace towards the end. In the final sequence he runs through the park, the animation speeds up and turns to colour, and he finds himself at a river where he says goodbye to his Perle. He turns then and speaks, just a few lines from the poem, and the emotional punch comes with force.
As I left the theatre the piece remained with me, the lingering mixture of sadness and hope continuing to resonate for the rest of the day. Perle, a collaboration between Dancing Brick, illustrator Serge Seidlitz and composer Harry Blake, is an inventive, and very touching piece which must be applauded for its original interpretation of a near ancient text. Its questionable elements can be forgiven in light of the overall quality of the production and its gentle lingering beauty.