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

Not if but when: Culture Beyond Oil

Unbound 2011Eds. Jo Clarke, Mel Evans, Hayley Newman, Kevin Smith, Glen Tarman

This publication, available in a hard copy limited edition run of 1000, has bold aims. Part documentation of actions and artworks by artists and activists concerned with oil company sponsorship of our art institutions, part information pack on the reasons why these artists are concerned, and part artwork in itself (artist Ruppe Koselleck has made each copy unique by daubing it with oil from the BP Gulf of Mexico spill).

With a little under 100 pages, the book provides a broad range of approaches to the topic. There is an insightful analysis of why exactly it is that BP and Shell need art sponsorship (a fact easily forgotten in the discussion that focuses on why art institutions need the oil money), a history of the campaign, an article explaining exactly why Shell and BP are such problematic companies (aside from covering the global dilemma around peak oil and pollution, their abuses of human rights in oil-rich countries are well documented), and a series of very clearly argued responses to a broad range of the arguments put forward in favour of the sponsorship. And this is less than half of the areas covered.

The texts are thoughtful and, even to those not previously disinterested in the discussion, impressively educational.

By presenting the documentation of so many artworks, installations and interventions in one place, a real sense of the strength of the movement is presented, and a rallying call to action inspirationally given.

Perhaps the contributions from the wider selection of artists and arts administrators that come at the end of the book could have used further editing; some of the texts unfortunately read as less detailed rehashes of arguments presented elsewhere more eloquently, though even this section serves a valuable role in revealing how many there are who oppose the abuse of power.

Culture Beyond Oil is a slickly presented, media savvy argument, much needed in the battle against the massive PR machines of the oil behemoths. I urge you to seek out a copy and share it with your friends. In the battle against the spin that these corporations and their friends push out on a daily basis, this and all the work of the three co-publishers is an essential counter.

As the Mexican painter Diego Rivera said (and is quoted as saying in the publication), ‘If it isn’t propaganda, it isn’t art.’

Available as download from: http://tinyurl.com/oilculture
Available in hard copy from Unbound: www.thisisunbound.co.uk

A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings – he’s come from who-knows-where and he’s landed in someone’s backyard in a small village somewhere-or-other, causing quite a flurry. What is he exactly, chicken man or stargazer? The locals divide up into those who consider him to be an angel, singing ‘Bring him wine and bring him bread / Let him sleep in a feather bed’, and those who think he’s a devil, to be kept on a chain in a backyard cage and fed potato peelings. An uneasy compromise ensues: he’s kept chained up, but ‘allowed’ to receive visitors, who with a mere touch of a wing are cured of their odd ailments – visitors such as Bernardo the Back-to-Front man who ‘had his head turned by a woman’, a poor unfortunate who ‘cannot sleep for the noise of the stars’, and an old misery-guts who finds herself tickled back to merriment with a feather. So many people are now coming from far and wide to seek a miracle cure that the villagers are starting to charge for services, making a pretty penny out of it all. It’s not long before the church poke their nose in, and ‘Lo, here comes Father Gonzalo’ with his three tests of angelhood, which of course our Very Old Man fails (divinity is never too keen on being tested). Watching all of the goings-on is the village gossip who peers out from her window, providing us with explanations and commentary, and just occasionally stepping out of the action, as in the end of the first act when she announces, ‘Interval! I’m going for a pee!’

Based on a short story by Gabriel García Márquez, a version of A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings was first staged by Kneehigh many years ago on a clifftop in Cornwall. Director Mike Shepherd has retained his fascination with the story, and this time round teamed up with the Little Angel’s Wright family – puppet-maker and designer extraordinaire Lyndie Wright, ultra-talented puppeteer-performer Sarah Wright, and internationally acclaimed film-maker Joe Wright – to retell the tale using a fantastic array of puppets of all shapes, sizes and forms. I hear tell there are over a hundred puppets featured in the production, from the army of scuttling crabs that invade the stage at the beginning, to groups of villagers (cleverly mounted on boards, so they can be manipulated four or more at a time), to individual characters (those with strange ailments particularly lovely – a back-to-front man is a puppeteer’s gift!). Then there’s the Old Man himself – a beautifully realised magical being, scrawny and crow-like in stillness, looking like little more than a cage full of old bones and feathers, yet when he lifts his head and spreads his wings, a beautiful black angel embracing the world.

Lyndie Wright’s set design is perfect for the story, a multi-levelled affair allowing for ground action (the yard with the caged creature being the central focus for the first act), window action in the ‘buildings’ to each side, little stage-thrusts left and right (allowing for individual characters to move into more intimate relationship with the audience as needed), and up high a representation of distant hills and roads, animated by little bicycles and buses whizzing to and from the village. In the second half, the auditorium is drawn into the stage action, the audience embroiled in the plans to welcome a dignitary from afar to the village: ‘Glad to see you’ve dressed for the occasion,’ says one of the puppeteers to me, and ‘Would you kindly hold this?’ to my companion as a string of bunting gets pulled across our heads.

It goes without saying that the puppetry skills are top-notch – this is a Little Angel production after all – and for much of the show my critic’s hat is knocked off as I sit in child-like wonder, often forgetting that the puppeteers even exist, especially in the sections in which they are out of sight or in low-key visibility mode. Yet at other points, the puppeteers are very much performers too – singing, interacting with their puppets, engaging us in the action. It’s a clever mix.

Like many traditional fairy tales, this relatively modern one introduces us to archetypal characters that have specific relevance to our own time and place – the dogmatic and inflexible priest who turns out to be corruptible and is literally defrocked (a moment that causes an uproar of hilarity for the feisty ‘special schools’ audience in that day), the avaricious banker who eventually swells so much he pops, the innocent child who believes, et al. At the heart of the story are questions of faith, trust, love, and attitude to ‘otherness’. A tale for our times – and for every time and every place, as essentially what’s in the cage being poked and prodded is our very humanity.

Ultimately, what’s most wonderful about the show is that it manages to combine the best of Keneehigh with the best of The Little Angel Theatre. Which is what you’d have hoped for in the collaboration, but to see it realised so beautifully is a joyous thing.

www.littleangeltheatre.com

Kings and Fools

Epiphany! So the Three Kings have come and gone, the Christmas trees have been taken down, and the Twelfth Night revellers have sobered up. The world is no longer turned upside down – everything’s back in its rightful place. It’s back to work, then…

Except of course that for many working in theatreland, the Christmas hols are hardly a holiday – what with pantos, puppetry shows and various Christmas residencies. A few names to drop for their seasonal successes are the Total Theatre Award winning 1927, whose The Animals and Children Took to the Streets did a run at the National Theatre that was sold out almost from the moment it was announced; the Little Angel Theatre’s collaboration with Kneehigh, The Very Old Man with Enormous Wings (profiled on Radio 4’s Frontrow special on puppetry); Theatre-Rites latest collaboration with Arthur Pita, Mojo, at the Barbican; NIE”s Hansel and Gretel at The Junction, Cambridge; and Travelling Light’s Cinderella at The Tobacco Factory Theatre in Bristol. At least some of which are reviewed here…

The New Year kicked off with the usual nationwide extravaganzas of fireworks displays, parades and parties – keeping many of our Total Theatre friends and associates (street theatre artists, circus and cabaret performers, pyrotechnicians) in employment.

At the stroke of midnight, I was to be found at the Komedia in Brighton for Trailer Trash – a regular bi-monthly ‘participatory event’ which features live performance, film and music inspired by one particular film or cinema genre. So, a bit like Secret Cinema except, er, not secret – they advertise the theme and the audience dresses appropriately.

Previous evenings had been dedicated to David Lynch, Baz Luhrmann and Barbarella. For the New Year’s Eve special – sold out well in advance, with many Trailer Trash ‘first-timers’ in addition to the hardcore regulars– they played it a little safer and more generic and went for a Las Vegas theme. So, yes, inspiration galore there: Honeymoon in Vegas (there was a Vegas chapel-of-love set up for anyone feeling the need), Leaving Las Vegas (plenty of broody Nic Cage look-alikes on stage and in the audience), Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (there were a good few gonzo journalists around the place). Elvis Presley’s Viva Las Vegas and the James Bond Diamonds Are Forever provided swinging inspiration for the house band, whose lead singer Laura Wright started the night in a gorgeous metallic gold dress and headdress, and ended the night in nothing more than red frilly knickers and a pair of star-shaped pasties. There were plenty of Showgirls, including the saucy burlesque dancer Coco Deville, who is lovely to watch as she always seems to be enjoying herself onstage so much – and I hear that I missed a troupe of feathery fan dancers earlier in the eve. The Ocean’s Eleven bodged heist scene informed a cleverly convoluted doubles corde lisse act by Trailer Trash co-founder Kitty Peels and her aerial partner Milo, their twists and turns, tumbles and tangles echoing the hitches and hiccups of the plot, the routine culminating in a hasty descent to the ground as they (and we – this act is performed in the middle of the dancefloor, not onstage) are showered by a paper money from a bursting bag.

Just a few days later I find myself at the Royal Albert Hall for Cirque du Soleil’s latest, Totem – back for a second year. It is directed by fellow Quebcois artist Robert Lepage, which might give one hope of something with a little more edge than usual – but I found it hard to discern the Lepage influence on the production. But if we put aside any expectations of what Lepage might bring, and focus on the circus itself, it delivered some very good acts (as you’d expect!) and thus an enjoyable enough evening. See review here…

Next up for me this January will be the annual London International Mime Festival who this year (as ever) are presenting a must-see programme of physical and visual theatre work, from the UK and from around the world. UK companies to look out for include No Fit State, and Sugar Beast Circus, who come to Jacksons Lane (making its debut in 2012 as a LIMF venue!).

Total Theatre strongly recommends Gandini Juggling’s Smashed (as featured on the cover of the current issue of the magazine, subject of The Works by Thomas Wilson), and I can also personally recommend Translunar Paradise (playing at the Barbican) by Theatre Ad Infinitum, a story about ‘life, death and enduring love’ that took the Edinburgh Fringe 2011 by storm. It was shortlisted for a Total Theatre Award and I described it in my Edinburgh Fringe reviewhere as ‘A near-perfect example of contemporary wordless theatre’.

I’ll be chairing two of the festival’s post-show discussions. First for Blind Summit’s The Table which comes to London hot on the heels of a phenomenal success at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, where it won a Fringe First, a batch of rave reviews, and a packed house throughout its run. The show opens the 2012 festival at Soho Theatre, a new venue for LIMF. The post-show is on Monday 16 January.

Then I’ll be at the Roundhouse on the following night, Tuesday 17 January, with Invisible Thread, the company formed by Liz Walker from the ashes of Faulty Optic. They appeared previously at LIMF with a three-part work-in-progress called Fish, Clay, Perspex and here return with their first fully-fledged full-length show, Plucked.

I am also planning on a trip to the Southbank Centre to see Toron Blues corde lisse piece Tendre Suie, inspired by Jean-Paul Sartre’s Huis Clos, which explores the notion that ‘hell is other people’. (Ah, so perhaps a doubles aerial act that isn’t about romance?); Australian company Fleur Elise Noble with 2 Dimensional Life of Her, a work of ‘light and shadows’ that uses drawing, animation, puppetry, projection, and paper, presented at the Barbican’s Silk Street Theatre; and also at the Barbican, Camille Boitel’s L’Immédiat: ‘On a stage crammed with machinery, objects, junk and bric-a-brac of every kind… a tumultuous, visual commentary on the uncertainty and mayhem of modern times’.

The London International Mime Festival runs 11 – 29 January 2012. For information on all the above shows and more, see www.mimefest.co.uk For venue details and online bookings, see here.

Perhaps I’ll bump into some of you at one or other of the above.

Happy New Year!

Cirque du Soleil: Totem

Circus and narrative: discuss.

Of course, a regular linear narrative is not at all necessary in circus. Circus is, traditionally, a series of acts, including aerial of all kinds, balancing acts using various devices, object manipulation of one sort or another, and sundry ‘specialist’ things like dance numbers or magic acts (or in old-school circus, animal acts) – with the clowns there to provide the glue to fill the gaps and to give space and time for the riggers to shift the kit. There can be a theme or some kind of overarching aesthetic that unites the show – but the acts don’t need to fit in with or tell a story.

So here’s the dilemma with circus-theatre: how to fit the narrative in with the acts. If a narrative is set up yet isn’t developed, then it is far more irritating and unsatisfying than no narrative. Cirque du Soleil’s Totem, their second collaboration with compatriot Robert Lepage, promises much but delivers very little in the way of engaging circus-theatre – although if we strip away the ‘theatre’ part of the equation, then there are some jolly good circus acts (as we’d expect of this world-renowned company).

The show is written and directed by Lepage (although Cirque have an extraordinarily large team of ‘creative directors’ and ‘artistic directors’ of various sorts on board too, so who knows who contributed what in reality!) and purportedly tells the story of the evolution of mankind, with the programme notes giving a reflection from Lepage on a human baby’s personal journey from watery womb to land, and from earth-bound rocking and crawling to upright walking and aspirations into the air – thus setting up a parallel between personal evolution and species evolution. This is a potentially interesting theme that is touched on but not properly developed in the show, which instead gives us scenes celebrating some sort of primeval/elemental ‘birth-of-life’ moment followed by a very superficial exploration of man’s conquering of nature, which mostly boils down to numerous comic reflections on water sports and activities (fishing, surfing, water-skiing) or cod-batty professor battles with the elements, or ‘suits’ go walkabout in the jungle skits. The clowning and physical theatre element generally is of a pretty average quality, with many of the scenes far too long – which is disappointing as past Cirque du Soleil shows have featured some wonderful clown and mime work.

There’s an oddly uncomfortable celebration of the noble savage and, bizarely, it all reminds me of the Millennium Dome Show of ten years past. Something to do with the upmarket hippy cultural patchwork aesthetic, multi-coloured ‘ethnic’ costumes, and everything-in-the-pot stew of ‘world music’ influences.

The one clear Lepage signature is the design of the set’s centrepiece, a kind of ‘island’ (backed by waving reeds that hide the live orchestra) upon which film is projected, thus very cleverly and effectively transforming a large area of the stage into river, swamp or sea as needed, with some neat screen-to-live moments (moving image swimmers become real people etc). At times this ‘island’ opens, closes and shape-shifts like a giant Transformer toy. In front of it is a large turtle-shaped construction (a nod towards Native American creation myths), its ‘skin’ coming off to reveal a bony structure used to dangle from or into, or flip over and through.

Some of the acts could be shoe-horned into the ‘evolution’ narrative reasonably successfully, such as the above-mentioned opening bars and trampoline act in and around the ‘turtle’, which denotes the nascent human beings’ rise to the vertical and emergence from the caves. Later, the age of enlightenment is represented rather nicely in a scene in which juggler Greg Kennedy in mad scientist mode manipulates LED balls within a Steampunk-style glass contraption, whilst a monkey in a lab coat looks on.

It’s really hard to fathom out, though, what the roller-skating duet (wonderful though they were – indeed, one of my favourite acts), or the Chinese all-lady unicycling and bowls-juggling team, had to do with anything, narratively speaking – even though technically excellent and artistically appealing. The foot jugglers similarly seemed out on a limb (so to speak) both thematically and narratively. In fact, they looked liked they’d just been airlifted in from the Moscow State Circus – space-age sparkly costumes and all. And I have to admit that whatever might be manipulated (balls, logs or, as in this case, cloths) foot juggling always seems to me to be – well, just what it is – and it doesn’t really rock my boat. A Perches act (climbing and balancing on flexible poles) is good but marred by over-reliance on tautly pulled harness support, so it all seems a bit too safe, with little sense of the daring thrill of it all.

Free of harnesses, and the best act of the evening, is a doubles static trapeze piece by French-Canadians Louis-David Simoneau and Rosalie Ducharme, who trained at Montreal’s acclaimed National Circus School. It’s an exploration of a romantic entanglement (par for the course for aerial doubles!), but with a different edge as they act out the irritations, exasperations and rapprochements of a relationship. Their routine has a gorgeous pace and rhythm as they twist and squirm towards and away from each other, moving from elegance to feigned awkwardness and back again. The Russian Bars act is also top-notch – an exhilarating and free-flying finale to the evening. Androgynous flyer Nikita Moiseev is particularly enchanting.

Ultimately, though, the pace of the show is slack, and the structure weak, with too much in the way of filler (those dull clowns), and far too much object manipulation (bearers of balls, bowls, devil sticks, and hoops seem ever-present – not to mention those Crystal Lady antipodists).

Given that the story is pretty meaningless, the pace and energy and general wow factor would need to be high to raise the show above its narrative failings – and Totem doesn’t really manage this. I think it is fair to say that it is not one of the better Cirque du Soleil shows.

www.cirquedusoleil.com

Theatre-Rites: Mojo

As we enter the depressingly empty Silk Street Theatre auditorium, we look to the stage to see a kind of giant π (Pi) shape made of blue neon lights, and to the side a small drumkit. At five minutes before the start of the show, the theatre is less than a quarter full – although to be fair to the company, this is the second show of the day and perhaps 7pm is not the ideal time for a family show. I check in with an usher, who says that the afternoon shows during the run have been very well attended for the most part…

It feels a little cold and gloomy sitting here under the blue neon, surrounded by empty seats, but there’s a last-minute rush of punters – and of performers, who enter in a flurry of pink tutus, green skirts, mauve shirts, and red leggings, and take their place amongst the audience. Now a burst of sound, and one by one the performers are summonsed on stage by the call of the drum – a tambourine played with extraordinary skill and verve by beat-boxer, percussionist and all-round hugely talented musician Adriano Adewale. Each performer creates their own idiosyncratic dance (or in the case of the second musician, Leo Altarelli, sound motif) as they ‘play’ to their shaman/conductor, and to the audience, before sashaying through, or limbo-dancing under, a morphing neon light ‘door’.

It’s a great start, and the follow-up is equally good, as a series of abstract shapes appear in the dark, puppeteered by invisible performers. After much clever shape-shifting, a puppet baby emerges, to be held and cooed over by her eight-strong team of parent-carers. Toddlerhood is played out through such wonderful scenes as a dance on a glockenspiel, the puppet’s little wooden feet serving as hammers tapping out the tune. Early childhood sees a very lovely little human-and-puppet tap dance, and a charming (if a little overlong) magic-tricks-and-transformations scene featuring a series of peony pink and lime green cones and balls.

Meanwhile the neon frame opens out to reveal a frame within the frame, shifting colours (from blue to white to yellow to pink…) in a Messiaen-like synaesthetic response to the notes played by our two highly gifted multi-instrumentalists, who move easily from trumpet to uke to drumkit and back to glockenspiel (via a bit of body percussion and the occasional tune on a kazoo).

With the advent of adolescence comes attitude: electric guitar, mini-skirts, tossed hair, and the donning of shades. And it’s downhill from then on in, as the child-carer relationship cracks, and the show itself shows signs of strain…

Theatre-Rites director Sue Buckmaster has declared her intention for Mojo(her second collaboration with choreographer Arthur Pita, following Mischief) to ‘explore the ways in which our society both ignites and hinders our children’s energy and spirit’, but it seems such a shame that all the ‘igniting’ seems to happen in early childhood, and the teenage section is a clichéd exploration of the ‘hindering’. There’s lots of finger-wagging and foot-stamping – and a mysterious long-winded section in which our puppet girl disappears for ages and the carers left behind wrestle with a giant spider upon a stage revolve (which is in itself a rather unnecessary piece of kit that adds little to the production).

What can it all mean? That they are experiencing the ‘we’ve lost our little girl’ feeling many parents experience in the teenage years? Could the spider be a metaphorical representation of burgeoning female sexuality? But hang on a mo – this a show aimed at families with children aged five and upwards. Such themes would not be of any interest to young children. Who on earth can this section of the show be aimed at, then?

This is a major dramaturgical hitch. The Play-Away vibe of the first half is delightfully innocent and appeals equally to adults and to young children, but is too ‘childish’ in tone for teenagers or pre-teenagers. The subject matter for the second half is too grown-up for young children – yet on the other hand, older children and teenagers hate being ‘discussed’ onstage in this knowing way, so I feel it wouldn’t appeal to them either.

Eventually our puppet girl re-emerges to shake off her teenage angst and grasp the world of young womanhood. This is played out through a samba-carnival routine in which the music and dance is wonderfully exuberant – but the puppetry suddenly becomes the least important consideration, with our almost-grown girl left with a dead and dangling arm, and a strange twitching dance action, whilst the human dancers give it all they’ve got alongside her. This in odd contrast to the excellent puppetry of the earlier sections. Work to be done here, then!

Despite these reservations, a production to be applauded for its extraordinary and inspiring fusion of live music and puppetry – it is rare to see a work in which live animation and sound work so closely in harmony.