SOB, Go the Way Your Blood Beats

Review in Issue 13-1 | Spring 2001

In Go the Way Your Blood Beats, SOB present a devised piece of work exploring the performers' personal experiences of contemporary New York alongside a representation of the city in the early twentieth century.

Issues such as racism and alienation are explored and provide the piece with interesting material. The imaginary meeting between Langston Hughes and Lorca is a fantastical light touch and hinted at the possibilities and coincidences that abound in a metropolis the size of New York.

At times, especially during the performers' confessionals, the show has a documentary feel about it – lending the evening substance and context. The fact that the performers can also sing well is used to great effect by director Orla O'Loughlin and we are treated to some good jazz.

Go the Way Your Blood Beats is confidently performed but overall there is something of the drama student production about the piece. Performances slide too quickly into comical caricatures which, while entertaining and sometimes quite satirical, keep the work safe.

Perhaps it is the fact that the piece is comprised of too many bits and that no through-line is sufficiently explored which prevents the subject matter from really having an impact.

I wanted to know more about Langston Hughes, for instance – the man and his poetry – but was only given dissatisfying snippets. This is an ambitious piece of theatre which is enjoyable and strong but never quite realises the potential of the sum of its parts.

Presenting Artists
Presenting Venue
Date Seen
  1. Feb 2001

This article in the magazine

Issue 13-1
p. 27