Author Archives: Dorothy Max Prior

About Dorothy Max Prior

Dorothy Max Prior is the editor of Total Theatre Magazine, and is also a performer, writer, dramaturg and choreographer/director working in theatre, dance, installation and outdoor arts. Much of her work is sited in public spaces or in venues other than regular theatres. She also writes essays and stories, some of which are published and some of which languish in bottom drawers – and she teaches drama, dance and creative non-fiction writing. www.dorothymaxprior.com

Caixa do Elefante: The Weaver

A lone figure on stage – a woman dressed in layers of rich rusty orange, old gold, and cream fabrics, a whirl of silks and cottons of many different textures. A pair of scissors drops down to meet her; a ball of twine unwinds and suspends itself in the space. We hear the rhythmic sound of a loom, and a fairy-tale chorus singing a lyrical song. And so we are off on the journey…

The Weaver is a simple and beautifully executed fantasy, the whimsical story of a woman at work who daydreams – or perhaps conjures up what she really, really wants for herself. There’s a moral here: be careful what you wish for; that handsome prince you’ve willed into your life might turn out to be someone other than the dream lover. Elements of well-known folk tales creep into the narrative – Sleeping Beauty’s spindle, Cinderella’s Prince Charming, the Gothic castles of Grimm’s Tales, the magical messenger birds of countless stories. The layering of associations adds to the rich tapestry of the piece.

The tale is told by the lone performer who is supported by two puppeteers, black-veiled female figures who are mostly invisible, but sometimes placed in a tableau, hinting at a half-way house shadow world just out of our reach. Talking of shadow: the piece uses both film projections and shadow theatre as a beautiful additional scenographic element. The weaver’s loom seen in shadow creates a beautiful silhouette, her hands appearing ten times larger than life on the screen. A film-still close-up of her face elevates her from mundane worker to fantasy princess, and patterns of woven cloth create a gorgeous screen backdrop.

This is a word-free piece, the visual dramaturgy working in tandem with a recorded score that integrates children’s song, accordion tunes, the sampled sounds of machinery, wistful waltzes, and a sensuous tango (as the weaver dances with her conjured-up gentleman friend).

The fantasy lover appears first as just a cloak, later acquiring a feathered hat, a puppet head, and finally a full body. The manipulation, particularly in the dance-and-romance scenes, reminds me of the work of Belgian company Mossoux Bonte – costume, puppetry and physical action merging into one. Human figures and puppets are interchanged in scenes that combine manipulation with sleight-of-hand illusion, offering the question: who is dreaming whom?

The Weaver is by Caixa do Elefante, a Brazilian company renowned for two decades of theatre excellence. They are presented at the Edinburgh Fringe by Cena Brasil, a Rio-based organisation/festival specialising in physical and visual theatre. Cena’s Brazilian Theatre Season at the Fringe features work by four outstanding companies.

A truly wondrous hour of magical theatre that is suitable for audiences of all ages. Be prepared to be entranced!

www.caixadoelefante.com.br

Pirates of the Carabina: Flown

All to the stage please! Cue entrances! Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, please welcome our performers: a stroppy princess in a party frock who thinks she’s the star of the show, a Finnish acrobat who is missing the snow, a slim ginger-haired tightrope-walker who has fallen many times (fallen for a girl); a wide-eyed flying flapper who’s still ironing her dress, and a jaunty sailor-boy and girl up a mast.

Flown uses the popular theatre (in both senses of that phrase) device of a show within a show. The cast play a motley crew of characters – heightened versions of themselves or clownish alter egos – who are assembled on a ramshackle set (cue aerialist crashing down from a broken lighting rig) to put on a show. Things go right and things go wrong (mock-wrong that is). People tell jokes: ‘What’s a fly with no wings? A walk.’ People take a breather from spinning in a wheel or dangling from a rope to mouth little monologues of confession (although they don’t do that half as well as Montreal troupe Les 7 Doigts de la Main, who have this breathy autobiographical-confessional trick down to a tee). There is much referencing, verbally and visually, to the nature of that beautiful dangerous thing that is the circus.

Often, there are two or more things going on at the same time, a kind of layering which reminds me a lot of No Fit State Circus but I suppose is as old as circus itself really – for example, a boy walks a highwire playing harmonica, whilst a couple spin in a cyr wheel, and the forever-ironing lady uses her board as a percussion instrument. There’s a lot of using things as percussion instruments – at another point the stage is set humming with a Stomp-like barrage of beating metal on metal.

Whilst there are many points of reference and comparisons with other contemporary circus shows in some of the dramaturgical decisions, Flown is never the less its own lovely, unique self. The spoilt princess is a fantastic character – arriving on stage in a cart pulled by a ludicrously small toy horse, performing a silks act in which she ends up tangled in the rigging, and playing electric guitar whilst flying harnessed in the air. Many of the other circus artists are also musicians – our ginger-haired tightrope walker turns out to be a pretty decent kit drummer – and there is also a live band, who find themselves drawn into the circus action. Or drawn up – there is nothing this company won’t have a go at harnessing and flying through the space.

Apart from the marvellous pouty princess – so rare to see brilliant clown and aerial going hand-in-hand – there is a wondrous Chinese pole act by sailor boy and girl. She in particular is amazing – so strong, so fluid. The choice of Irish folk song She Moved Through the Fair is a stroke of genius, a perfect match for the poignant choreography.

Flown was first commissioned by Glastonbury Festival for its Circus Big Top in 2011, and has subsequently been supported by production company Crying Out Loud. It’s a delightful show brimming with skilful, funny, and heart-warming performances; boasting an ingenious set full of mechanical curiosities; and a great integration of live music and physical action. And how good it is to see a new British circus company making their mark at the Edinburgh Fringe!

http://piratesofthecarabina.co.uk

Eight Days a Week

Dorothy Max Prior at the Edinburgh Fringe 2013

Eight days in, there’s exhaustion for sure – but also a gratitude for the opportunity to see so much theatre work in such an intensive time period. You get a broad sweep of the state of the art in the UK, and you get a chance to see artists from all over the world presenting work – you find themes and motifs and areas of exploration repeating and crossing over, and you find some things that you’ve never seen before. Your ability to judge what works and what doesn’t in performance sharpens and hones (invaluable for a critic and dramaturg, and indeed for anyone making work).

There are gaps, though, and the Fringe environment favours certain kinds of work – we need to acknowledge that. There is no street theatre in the programme, very little site-responsive work. Companies making unusual but accessible work have the edge over companies making work that needs time and space around it, Anyone with a show that is more than an hour long is taking a mighty risk in an environment in which audiences get twitchy after 55 minutes.

BlackSKYwhite’s Omega, is an example of a show that isn’t an easy ride. It’s such an intense, visceral experience that it is hard to go straight from it into another show. It’d probably be better as an evening show so that you could walk out and stare at the moon afterwards, rather than emerge blinking into the bustle of George Street on a sunny afternoon, although I suppose there is something decadent and appealing in that contrast. Dudendance’s This Side of Paradise explores the darker side of life, but the fact that it starts in daylight makes it even spookier for me. Oh and to flag up that although it is what you might call a minimal promenade, this is a site-responsive promenade piece.

Karavan Ensemble’s Somnambules (by ex-Derevo performers Tanya Khabarova, who co-founded the company, and her long-time colleague Yael Karavan) is programmed at 9.30pm, which feels right and good. It’s a show that I’ve seen twice in the past week, and which I enjoyed much more on second viewing. Perhaps some shows need that. After all, there are pop tunes that become instant ear-worms, and there is music that you need to hear a few times to really appreciate – the slow growers. Perhaps some theatre is like that too? Easy enough for you, I hear you say, with your press pass – those Fringe tickets are expensive, we can’t afford to go twice. Which is why I think companies/venues should let you in half price if you want to come back. I have given this idea to Anthony Roberts of Escalator East to Edinburgh / Colchester Arts. This gift was witnessed by Shôn Dale-Jones of Hoipolloi. Go, Dr Roberts – run with it.

Gecko’s Missing I feel is a show that would benefit from a second viewing. I enjoyed so much about it – fantastic design, accomplished choreography, interesting ideas about identity and trauma explored – but there was something – well yes, missing – for me. It’s like it’s a jig-saw puzzle with parts lost that, could I just locate them, would make sense of the whole picture. And yet, and yet – I keep seeing the images I witnessed popping up unsummoned in front of my eyes, keep puzzling over sections that I didn’t understand.

Gecko are part of the Escalator East programme. This curated bunch of shows from the East of England region is a mixed bag of emerging and established artists working across the board, from new writing to new performance via ensemble physical/devised theatre. Other Escalator things that have wooed and won are Bryony Kimmings’ Credible Likeable Superstar Role Model, and the Hunt & Darton Café, which this year is café-as-living-artwork during the day – guest waiters enhancing their shifts with performative interventions – and a more conventional venue at night. Conventional in the sense of full-length shows that are programmed, ticketed and all that jazz – although the shows presented are not your average Fringe show. On Thursday night (8 August) I arrived just for the ending of Richard DeDomenici’s Popaganda (a cleverly merry romp seen by TT in Brighton), indeed almost arrived onstage as I fought my way, Tommy Coper style, through the blacks, and I caught all of Hunt & Darton’s own show Boredom.

This is an interesting challenge: how to make a show about boredom that isn’t boring. Or perhaps is boring, but in the right sort of way. I was, I must confess, ready for some boredom after a week of intensive viewing. For example, viewing (and hearing) shows such as the intensely busy and overloaded – with ideas, with words, with sounds, with stuff of all sorts – Laquearia (written and directed by Victoria Miguel), which presents an imaginary chess game between John Cage and Samuel Beckett, a kind of performance lecture cum theatre show that would, I am sure, horrify both Cage (for its incessant unnecessary noise) and Beckett (for its self-conscious intellectualism and horribly hackneyed acting). So understandably I was really pleased to get a bit of silence and minimalism onstage. I think both Cage and Beckett would have approved of Boredom. The Hunt & Darton girls know a good pause when they see one.

Other bright young things: I was a lot less taken with Little Bulb’s Squally Showers than with their previous shows. I like the company’s work, but this one didn’t do it for me: I found myself longing for the innocence and sincerity of Crocosmia, rather than the postmodern pastiche seen here. As far as other young companies go – I haven’t seen it yet, but one of the Escalator shows getting a lot of interest (reviewed for TT by Terry O’Donovan) is New Wolsey Young Associate’s Party Piece. Another young company to watch: Clout’s The Various Lives of Infinite Nullity (reviewed for TT by Beccy Smith, seen also by yours truly) was a delightful surprise. A surprise because I was expecting How a Man Crumbled part two, and instead got a whole new aesthetic and a whole new take on dark clowning. A delight because it was so ridiculously, absurdly funny. No second-show syndrome here… Another bright young thing is Rachel Mars. The Way You Tell Them reflects on the use and abuse of comedy – it was funny and thought provoking, beautifully crafted by Ms Mars and director Jamie Wood (who alternates the lunchtime slot with Rachel, presenting his own show Beating McEnroe, which I thought I was booked in to see – but I got Rachel instead).

Theatre Re are relatively young, and The Little Soldiers (presented at the Pleasance Dome) has a lot going for it – accomplished mime/physical theatre performances, a really interesting integration of live music into the action, and a wicked way with mic cables which morph from horse reins to tightropes to strings that turn performers into living marionettes. The story is of an old family circus, and the fatal rivalry of two brothers who are both in love with the lovely lady acrobat. So it’s here that I lose patience: do we really need another story in the world with woman as desirable ‘other’, woman as trouble-maker, woman who plays one man against another. I’m not arguing for political correctness in theatre – just saying that this is a hackneyed storyline that is a waste of the company’s evident talents. But although this one doesn’t do it for me, I’ll be interested to see what they do next.

Also leaving me a little bemused was Lucy Hopkins, whose one-woman show is called The Veil. It’s what it says on the can: one woman, one long piece of silk cloth, numerous characters played. Minimal lighting and soundtrack, and that’s it – a quick get-in, then. So it’s all down to this person and her talent to conjure characters out of the blue, which she’s good at, but I just don’t like any of the characters, so lose interest quickly. They are all stereotypes of middle-class middle-aged womanhood: the bombastic bluestocking (‘I’m an artist’), the nervous apologiser with the fluttery voice and hands, the mad-as-a-hatter foreigner. The quick changes become ever-quicker until eventually they start to merge and muddle, and the work starts to reference its own theatricality ‘ You don’t exist, you are an invention!’ says one. ‘ I’m performing you!’ says another, before stepping out of the action altogether. Thinking back, I like the idea of the show better than the experience of watching it. There are, though, some very lovely moments: a breathless half-sung half-spoken rendition of La Vie en Rose; the words of Gloria Gaynor’s I Will Survive delivered with great aplomb as a speech; and a wide-eyed and tentative retreat from the stage into the audience’s space. So, I wasn’t totally won over, but by the end of the show I was far closer to being won over than I had been at the start…

Another one referencing its own existence as a piece of theatre is David Leddy’s Long Live the Little Knife, presented at the Traverse and reviewed here. Leddy is an Edinburgh Fringe perennial and has made many different sorts of work in the past – a site-responsive piece set in the Masonic lodge, an MP3 player piece for solo walkers (which was made long before this sort of thing was being done by everyone everywhere). This latest play is far more of a play than these other works, but it’s a good play – and sometimes that’s quite enough. Long Live the Little Knife is a play that pretends to be a verbatim piece; an actual verbatim piece – replete with ums and ers – is The Love Project, which is going out under award-winning Look Left Look Right’s auspices, but is the work of an associate artist (Ellie Browning) rather than the core company. It’s a very good example of a verbatim play, the interviews edited and segued together to create interesting rhythms and juxtapositions. I’m less taken with the performances. To be fair, they are feisty and energetic, and it is a big ask to swap character so swiftly back and forth throughout an hour – but there are far too many dodgy accents and far too little finding the change of character in the physical presence of the actor. But we meet some lovely characters – Cora and Bill are the stars, married in 1956. ‘Do you remember that time I made a sandwich?’ says Cora and Bill nods stoically. Of course he does – that’s what being married for more than half a century does for you…

Also at the Traverse are the multi-award winning Belgian company Ontroerend Goed with Fight Night, an interactive piece exploring the politics of democracy (reviewed here). Theatre about politics, and political theatre – not the same thing, of course, but there’s plenty of both at the Fringe. I’ve seen a few shows that tackle issues around cultural identity and politics. Theatre Ad Infinitum’s Ballad of the Burning Star is a must – an inspired use of cabaret mores to explore the chequered history and current challenges of Israel. Upopirates Theatre’s Caryatid Unplugged is a solo show by a young Greek woman, Evi Stamatiou. It’s a chirpy piece of work that marries good comic writing with effervescent and engaging performance, using ‘poor theatre’ tools (a mop puppet, a talking hat, a packing crate). She tells the story of an immigration officer John facing up to Rita, a Greek woman who doesn’t want to be deported, and Caryatid – a Greek statue who does. You and I might see Caryatid as one of the Elgin Marbles but she doesn’t see herself that way – Lord Elgin seemed like a nice enough chap, seducing her into running away with him to England, but he deceived her and locked her up in the British Museum, and now she wants to go home, back to the Parthenon. It’s a clever idea – a very entertaining hour with a bit of an edge to it. Oh, and featuring a very lovely take on shadow theatre, using a shower curtain, to the pulp song Common People. All together now: ‘She came from Greece she had a thirst for knowledge / She studied sculpture at Saint Martin’s College…’

I should mention here that Hill Street Theatre (the Fringe’s oldest venue) have taken a decision that from this year on they will only programme solo theatre shows – with a stated desire to make this lovely little theatre the hub for solo performance of all sorts (theatre, dance, live art – anything but stand-up, basically. An interesting development in the Fringe landscape.

Another interesting new venture is the Brazilian Theatre Season presented by Cena Brasil at Venue 150, part of the Edinburgh Conference Centre, a rather sterile venue a little off the beaten path (although only a stone’s through from the Traverse so not too far from the heart of the city). The programme presents four works by renowned Brazilian companies, with an emphasis on physical/visual work. I’ve seen Caixa do Elefante’s The Weaver which is a lovely, lyrical piece of puppetry/animation and physical performance. Because the venue is an unknown one off the usual circuit, these top quality shows are not getting as large an audience as they deserve. Choice of venue at the Edinburgh Fringe is such a major decision for artists and producers – I can see the appeal for Cena of having such a well-equipped and clean space practically to themselves, but there is no passing trade, no buzz, no-one to pick up the programme flyers whilst seeing other theatre shows… Other International shows I’ve enjoyed include the BE Festival supported Solfatara, by Catalan company Atresbandes, a mad-cap deconstruction of couple relationships using a very clever mix of theatrical devices, including anarchic surtitling that fights back (reviewed here soon). I also saw Vladimir Tzekov’s Fantasy no 10: The Beauty of Life, also a BE show, also presented at Summerhall – but this appealed less. It’s a beautifully performed piece of absurdist physical theatre, but I felt alienated, and didn’t warm to the tone or the physical/ visual imagery presented. And yes, I understand that was partly the point – the ambiguity of images and idea – but still. A bearded man in a ballet tutu, a man tipped out of wheelchair, aggressive language ‘take me out of here, bitch’, slaps and pushes, a woman carted around like a frozen doll, Tiger Lillies songs – I feel I’ve been there and done that many times over, although take my hat off to the company for the energy and precision of their performances.

Then, there’s two lovely French shows presented at Summerhall: Cie Bal/Jeanne Mordoj with La Poème, a gorgeous solo performance featuring a hand-held harmonium and a lot of eggs, and Cie Non Nova’s L’Apres Midi d’un Faun. Listed in the Children’s section, it’s a one-man show – a very simple idea of animating plastic bags with fans that somehow becomes a beautiful exploration of the joy of freedom, the fickle hand of fate, and the finite nature of life (and death).

Over at a long-standing venue, the Roxy (once Demarco’s gaff, now under the care of the Assembly – which by the way is different to the newly reopened Assembly Rooms, but if you want to know more about all that Google it or speak to Stewart Lee, it’s a long story), Wet Picnic, better known as a street theatre company, are presenting Death and Gardening. First to say that gardening doesn’t feature, the show is about death and non-death – in other words, it’s a reworking of the age-old story made famous in the film A Matter of Life and Death: person on deathbed, messengers from beyond the grave coming to claim his soul etc etc. There is a twist, though, which I won’t give away. At the time of seeing it, the show was in dire need of development. There was 50 minutes of zany clowning and humorous flashbacks, then a sudden switch in tone for a finale that hadn’t been earned by the story as told to that point. But as someone said to me, that’s what the Fringe is for – doing a month’s run and learning how to work the show.

But is it? So much is at stake for artists bringing work here, and it is such a great big global showcase, that it seems a bit risky to present a work-in-progress, unless it is in a ‘safe’ environment like the Forest Fringe, where the experimental nature of the work is flagged up very clearly. And there’s a difference between trying out a new idea and presenting a supposedly finished show with dodgy dramaturgy…

Another show that left me wondering was French Cie HERVE-GIL’s Fleurs de Cimetiere, which on paper looked interesting – a piece combining choreography and poetic text in a reflection on women and ageing (fleurs de cimetiere – cemetery flowers – is the French name for age freckles, those brown marks that appear on ageing skin). It could have been an empowering statement – that’s what the pre-publicity seemed to promise – instead it came across as an angsty whinge, delivered in a heavy French accent that got the stresses and rhythms of the English language wrong time and time again. And although the choice of music is good, from lieder to Scottish folk tunes via Kate Bush and La Vie en Rose (yes, again – I’ve heard it used in four shows so far at this Fringe), the choreography is unchallenging. It starts with some nice sub-Pina Bausch gestural stuff and play with chairs, but doesn’t really move forward into anything else. The five women performers are of very varying dance ability – which is perhaps the point, but it doesn’t inspire.

At the other end of the contemporary dance spectrum come Rosie Kay and Guilherme Miotto with Sluts of Possession, seen at Dance Base. Oh my, here is dance talent, here is all the energy and vitality in dance performance you could hope for. Created in collaboration with filmmaker Louis Price, the piece has used archive film – anthropological field recordings from The Pitt Rivers Museum – as its starting point, a catalyst for the choreography and a source material for the very beautifully made and ingeniously projected film. The subject to-hand is ‘possession’, emotional and spiritual – an exploration of the cross-cultural notion of primitive drives and transcendental states. I loved it, but my enthusiasm was somewhat dampened in a conversation in the bar afterwards with someone who was extremely angry at what they perceived to be an ‘imperialist’ approach to other cultures in the use of the field recordings and what they saw as a parody of ‘primitivism’. Which is interesting in itself – you think you like something, then someone tells you that you can’t possibly like it because of XYZ. But I still like it. I think. Isn’t it all right to reflect on shared ideas and modes of expression throughout humanity’s history? Hasn’t all progression in dance come about through cultural appropriation? Does this mean I shouldn’t dance the tango because it belongs to Argentina. Except it doesn’t, it came from Spain and Africa, and possibly Paraguay. There is no ‘purity’ in dance. Discuss…

From dance to circus: some of my favourite things seen so far at Fringe 2013 are the circus shows, from the ultra-slick and sexy Wunderkammer by Circa to the beautifully anarchic Fright or Flight by fellow Australians 3 is a Crowd, via not one but two shows by NoFit State, Bianco presented in their own tent, and Noodles, which goes up in a lunchtime slot at New Town Theatre. Then there’s Flown by Pirates of the Carabina, and the not-to-be-missed Smashed by Gandini Juggling, which has been doing the rounds for a couple of years but making its Edinburgh Fringe debut. I feel that there is a lot to say about all of these, but this will need to be at another time – exhaustion has set in, for me and no doubt for the reader trying to digest all of this! And this was just week one. But these magnificent circus shows will be reflected on soon. Watch this space – further reviews, features and reflections to be posted.

Karavan Ensemble: Somnambules and the 7 Deadly Sins

Doctor, doctor can you hear my heartbeat? It goes boom diddy boom diddy boom diddy boom – well goodness gracious me! Yael Karavan’s assumed character at the start of Somnambules has something of the classic Sophie Loren about her, with her shiny black hair, seductive eyes and wiggling walk. Her white-coated doctor friend, played by Tanya Khabarova, is heralded by a harpsichord riff – this, the gleaming bald head, and the sinister smile, give him/her an air of sci-fi menace. Let the experiment begin…

NEXT! Together they flirt and dance, and delve ever deeper into their shared psyche(s), a Jungian sea of unconscious fears and desires informed by archetype and icon. Binary divides and dichotomies abound. They morph and change, they are animus and anima, war and peace, good and evil, black and white – a pair of heavenly (or devilish) twins joined at the hip, at one point fighting to assert their own individuality, at another trying to merge into one. Manipulating and manipulated, swapping roles of puppet and puppet-master, creating an alchemical mix that bubbles and boils until eventually exploding, resulting in a plastic beach of distressed bubblewrap, bin liners and rain ponchos occupied by our two characters, who would seem to have regressed (or perhaps progressed) to a negative print of Tellytubby land, all high-pitched voices and silly party games, a king and queen in paper crowns.

NEXT! Rewind the clock. There are hands that become fluttering birds, a Faustian contract signed in blood, a baptism of fire, toy guns, robotic dances, a Pieta, a wild waltz, a tongue-in-cheek Isadora Duncan tribute. There are veils, and brides, and confetti. There are alchemical signs, tarot cards, skulls. There are mirrors, and shadows, and there is a moon. La Luna, la Luna – you shine so bright tonight.

The visual imagery of this piece is rich and deep. The physical performances are stunning: Tanya Khabarova and Yael Karavan have a shared history as members of multi-award winning Russian ensemble Derevo (of which Khabarova was a founder member, and in which both performed for many years), and the performances are of a quality rarely seen anywhere. A match made in heaven indeed. Or brokered with the devil, one or the other. The lighting design is sophisticated and beautiful, the sound an extraordinary mix of musical and sonic elements from many different places and times – from chirpy cuckoo clock to bombastic church bell; from nursery music-box tinkle to war zone bombardment.

It’s not a perfect show. There are moments that sag a little, the worst being a paean to ‘Destiny’ in which the words of a pre-recorded voice are mouthed by Yael Karavan as she sits cross-legged in front of a mirror. It comes early in the show, and it drags the energy down just as it should be lifting. Yes, the ‘destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice’ question is an interesting one, but I would have preferred it raised in some other way. There is a beautiful shadow-theatre sequence, but played off-centre rather than straight-on, so some of the audience see behind the screen and some don’t. I suppose as the shadow work rather cleverly references the Wayang Kulit puppet tradition, it is fine to see the behind-screen workings (as one would do in Bali), but it never the less seems a little odd.

I sometimes feel that the show would have benefited from an outside director or dramaturg, or at the very least an outside eye: the relationship between Khabarova and Karavan is so close, so intense, that the audience sometimes feel a little like voyeurs looking in on it, rather than being drawn fully into the game.

It should also be noted that the show has moved so far away from the original content and structure of the piece of the same name presented at Brighton Festival Fringe 2012 (and reviewed there by Total Theatre) that it has, in essence, become another work altogether.

Somnambules is a show that I’ve seen twice in its current form, and it is a show you need to see twice. I know that is a contentious thing to say, I know some of you will believe that theatre should work on one viewing, but there is so much to view that a second look is strongly advised. It is an extraordinary adventure, chock-full of mythical allusion and theatrical illusion. A very full, and totally full-on, spectator experience.

Rachel Mars: The Way You Tell Them

A fart joke in the first two minutes – that’s the way to do it! Happy days are here again! Where’s my wolf suit?

Performance artist, writer and erstwhile stand-up comedian Rachel Mars presents – ta-da! – a perfectly pitched show investigating joke-telling and laughter. Brace yourselves for a mad-cap rollercoaster ride that takes you from her Jewish grandfather’s reputation as a wag (although hearing his jokes recounted, Rachel struggles to understand why – it must be the way you tell ‘em) through to her own experiences on London’s comedy circuit doing stand-up in a wolf onesie, via Mighty Mouse and the Ha Ha Bonk Joke Book (which is indeed the best source for Knock Knock jokes). There is a also a running gag, or a comic story in instalments anyway, about a terrible occurrence at a Jewish funeral, which is fantastic, pulling together many typical components of humorous tales: death, cultural differences, losing control of situations and trying to keep a stiff upper lip, worries about social standing etc etc. I won’t spoil say anymore.

But it’s not all laughs, there are serious questions too. What do we find funny and why? Is there anything off-limit, anything we shouldn’t joke about? Paedophilia? Aids? Bomb blasts? Train crashes? Laughter is everywhere, in al human cultures: laughter as an anti-stress release, cruel laughter, laughter that unites, laughter that contradicts the serious notion that there is one agreed reality that we all share…

Rachel Mars has a great onstage persona, and brilliant comic timing. There’s a simple set, the stage furnished with a coffee table and chair and a standard lamp, with nice little scenographic touches that create a theatrical unity between the different onstage elements – red shoes, red notebook, red cushions. There are minimal but good choreographic touches, a wee bit of well-managed audience interaction, and some nice use of on-mic off-mic banter. It has all been gently guided and ably directed by award-winning theatre-maker Jamie Wood – hard to tell where his influence starts and ends as so much of the show is coming from Rachel’s personal experience, but there’s a shape and a structure and a rhythm to it all that gives it an edge over many one-person shows on the Fringe, so whatever the dynamic it’s a winning team. It’s a clever piece of work, because it has the rolling humour and vibrancy of a stand-up act, but it is so much more – a beautifully crafted and brilliantly performed solo theatre piece.

The Way You Tell Them was developed with support from the Basement Brighton and CPT London.

www.rachelmars.org