Once more I took the road to Wales. Once again by coach to the performance site deep in the forest, the place of magic and transformation. Stages grow out of the ruined house walls and out of the trees. The trees grow out and through the stages. We sat literally in the trees looking at the array of platforms and ladders.
Five performers told the intertwining stories of victims and rooms; clambering through poles and trees, criss-crossing the stages as we were shown the life of a house, the death of a prostitute, the dying of a fasting girl with the parallels of places, event, violence. We were confronted by the sordid realities of undignified lives and deaths. A soundscape reverberated around the trees as lights swung from one figure to another. We were surrounded by nature, but here nature does not carry salvation; it is ironic, the mute setting only for the events of a broken society.
The piece does not have the incessant pounding power and physical impact of Arturius Rex nor the mythic level that linked us with the events across time. There is not the physical connection between performers and audience.
Thus we are left only as observers. Rather it is the totality and the vision of the space that resonated this time – the sheer presence of the stages, trees, stone walls, sound and figures all intertwined and growing from each other as the space itself over-arches the action.