The Echo Chamber is an introverted and largely impenetrable hour-long piece of work that hovers between installation and performance. The piece is a collaboration between renowned psycho-physical actor trainer Phillip Zarrilli and Song of the Goat performer Ian Morgan, directed by experimental performance and installation group MKultra’s Peader Kirk.
On stage: two men, two rooms. The rooms have no boundaries between them and the men go ponderously from one to another, never interacting. They might be academics, working their lives away on the meaning of life – they might be the same man at different times of life – or living parallel lives – perhaps – but they were almost entirely characterless so I can’t be certain they were intended as anyone at all. Text-heavy, their performance is aimed at nobody, their speech a curious meandering of scientific and philosophical theories, poetic thoughts, ideas about the physical world, repetitions, delivered into a half-distance, occasionally in Welsh and even once in Italian.
They move about. One – the elder – carries his shoes back and forth, sometimes switches a standard lamp on – or off. The other – the younger (whose speech is easier to follow) sometimes moves in a fascinating, beautiful dance, falling suddenly backwards, sideways – as if into another world? As if stunned by a realisation? As if weightless or suddenly transformed into something else? These are later musings – during the hour there was no time to stop and think; the monologues carried on, never allowing engagement, never asking for answers or even offering questions. Infinity, matter, mathematics, the universe, snow crystals, elements…
The sound was memorable – in particular a standout soundscape that sounded like electronic snow and ice, anxiety, car headlights, a sigh of relief towards the end of the performance. It was a peaceful hour but alienating, leaving little mark on this reviewer but a vague sense of confusion and disbelief.