Trestle Theatre has been producing physical theatre work for twenty years, famed for their use of masks. Over the past five years they have launched Trestle Unmasked, in which they have uncovered their performers faces and embraced a collaborative ethos of theatrical storytelling.
The Man with the Luggage is the result of a collaboration between director Oliver Jones from company Blindeye and writer Lizzie Nunnery, who were inspired by Ionesco’s text of the same name. The piece is a surreal, funny and at times, captivating, telling of a story of repatriation, countries at war, the danger and absurdity of borders, and ultimately of what it means to be home.
Setting off with said luggage, Nicholas Tizzard plays Damir, a man searching for his home after an unnamed war in an imagined part of Europe. As he crosses hundreds of miles he meets a young married couple, accordion playing beggars, intimidating border police and a (beautifully masked) couple dancing in mourning of their father’s death, all played with impressive energy and precision by Nicole Lewis and John Cockerill. As Damir gets ever more desperate to reach a home where he hopes his lover is awaiting him, his experiences become surreal – he hears voices (a haunting Jim Broadbent’s voice to be exact) and has a philosophical discussion with a fish, a highlight of a production so packed with characters, images and changes it sometimes loses focus.
As an exploration of the human ability to adapt to extreme situations and bury massive problems Nunnery’s text is quietly spot on. In stark contrast, the core of this ambitious theatrical journey is our personal need to find our rightful place in the world and the unending tension between where our physical and philosophical home sits. It’s almost heartbreaking, and within the next few weeks of touring that heart of the piece will no doubt find it’s way to shine through.