Author Archives: Geraldine Harris

Green Eyed Zero: Folie à Deux

Green Eyed Zero: Folie à Deux

Green Eyed Zero: Folie à Deux

Green Eyed Zero have developed and created a giant touch screen that forms the centrepiece of their climbing-frame set, the whole of which represents a room in which two ‘mentally unwell’ characters live out their retreat. The two Circomedia-trained company members have also built this set themselves, and control their own sound and video cues via wireless remote control technology. I know this from the programme material rather than watching the show. It is interesting from a practitioner’s point of view, presumably allowing the pair a greater control over their environment, but it doesn’t add anything to the connection between audience and performance. The touch screen reacts to pressure from a body part or prop, but the technology isn’t the novelty now that it was two years ago, when Green Eyed Zero began their journey. During the performance, I was inclined to accept it as I would have accepted a large video screen with moving images, or even a blackboard which the cast drew diagrams on.

Each of the two characters has been affected by severe trauma, in both cases the distressing accidental death of a loved one. Sebastien Valade plays a character with a rare disorder that causes him to believe he is dead. He feels nothing and wants nothing from life. He detachedly manipulates juggling clubs in a way which is technically good, but which feels separate from, or additional to, the show as a whole. The juggling seems to be a metaphor for a psychological depth, an unphysical layer that is perhaps deemed unrepresentable on the stage of a ‘physical theatre’ performance. This could be interesting, but Valade’s performance is not complex enough to communicate this.

Rachel Pollard’s character has dissociative amnesia. Her story unfolds with the help of a ‘therapist’ cipher, a voiceover from the outside world, who is authoritative, sometimes patronising, and again detached from the performance. The video screen is used, like the juggling, to suggest hidden psychological depths. Folie à Deux progresses with a deepening of the two characters’ relationship with one another, leading to an improvement in one’s mental state and a deterioration in the other’s.

Green Eyed Zero clearly have a cerebrally sophisticated relationship with digital technology and juggling, but their decision to create a full-length narrative performance combining these art forms with such difficult, charged subject matter has been misguided at this stage, as it undermines the work they have done in developing the technology. As artists, they do not seem particularly engaged in telling a story, which is highlighted when the computer crashes towards the end of the performance – these things happen – halting the music and the swirling images onscreen. They both jump out of character, giggling and blustering and betraying the little trust they have built up with the audience at what should have been an incredibly intense moment in the performance, and wasn’t. In the world they had created, people’s lives hung in the balance, and even they didn’t believe in it.

www.greeneyedzero.com

Acrojou Circus Theatre: Wake ¦ Photo: Bertil Nilsson

Acrojou Circus Theatre: Wake

Acrojou Circus Theatre: Wake ¦ Photo: Bertil Nilsson

Acrojou have previously performed thoughtful, artistic work on German Wheels (like ‘Dust’ and ‘The Wheel House’) at street theatre festivals and circus events but this is their first full-length theatre show, which is touring until the end of March. Since this could well be the first ever show produced and performed by German Wheel artists, it’s hard to know what to expect – and the publicity doesn’t much help.

The show lifts off with physical comedy as Barney White strips to his pants, dancing unselfconsciously, alone-in-his-bedroom, to a funky backing track. He’s putting on a suit, perhaps to go to work…or perhaps a funeral (this is aWake, after all). He goes to leave the room via a door at the top of a ramp of wooden planking but it’s locked. This on a very basic level is the précis of the show – where the room he is locked into could = his life; his day; himself. A second character, played by Jeni Barnard got up to look exactly like Barney – mask and all, bizarrely – arrives through the locked door, from under the table, from round the corner – she’s Barney too, and he’s not very happy with himself. It’s an abstract, exploratory piece, walking a fine line between playful and grave – and looking more at dreams and metaphors for emotions than real narratives and memories of a real life lived. One minute you will know exactly what you think is going on, and the next you will be confounded.

An image of Barney beating Jeni (/himself) with a sock, she clinging upwards to the splintery wooden ramp, clawing at it with rollerskated feet, palpably turned hilarity to despair amongst the audience. Not long after, Barney is caught in the firing line of a machine gun which seems to signify all that life could throw at him.

Dance, clowning, theatre, and mime are subtly woven together – and during the first half of the show, the wheel is used sparsely, to signify a barrier between Barney and his surreal alter-ego/self. Towards the end of the show a longer duet wheel piece introduces a beautiful, smiling love interest. The skills are a joy to watch but the routine seems to slow the piece down. The image of the ‘girlfriend’ crumbling in Barney’s arms, a thin column of dust falling from the ceiling, could have had greater impact had momentum not been lost this late in the show.

The pair’s street-theatre rawness and immediacy, their good humour, bravery at play and some good direction sing through, and whilst there is still work to be done, there is much that works, very well. This is a complex and fascinating piece of theatre with generally understated and sophisticated use of physical theatre and circus skills. A shame the wheelwork isn’t more integrated – but it will get there.

www.acrojou.com

The Llanarth Group: Echo Chamber ¦ Photo: Katie O'Reilly

The Llanarth Group: Echo Chamber

The Llanarth Group: Echo Chamber ¦ Photo: Katie O'Reilly

The Echo Chamber is an introverted and largely impenetrable hour-long piece of work that hovers between installation and performance. The piece is a collaboration between renowned psycho-physical actor trainer Phillip Zarrilli and Song of the Goat performer Ian Morgan, directed by experimental performance and installation group MKultra’s Peader Kirk.

On stage: two men, two rooms. The rooms have no boundaries between them and the men go ponderously from one to another, never interacting. They might be academics, working their lives away on the meaning of life – they might be the same man at different times of life – or living parallel lives – perhaps – but they were almost entirely characterless so I can’t be certain they were intended as anyone at all. Text-heavy, their performance is aimed at nobody, their speech a curious meandering of scientific and philosophical theories, poetic thoughts, ideas about the physical world, repetitions, delivered into a half-distance, occasionally in Welsh and even once in Italian.

They move about. One – the elder – carries his shoes back and forth, sometimes switches a standard lamp on – or off. The other – the younger (whose speech is easier to follow) sometimes moves in a fascinating, beautiful dance, falling suddenly backwards, sideways – as if into another world? As if stunned by a realisation? As if weightless or suddenly transformed into something else? These are later musings – during the hour there was no time to stop and think; the monologues carried on, never allowing engagement, never asking for answers or even offering questions. Infinity, matter, mathematics, the universe, snow crystals, elements…

The sound was memorable – in particular a standout soundscape that sounded like electronic snow and ice, anxiety, car headlights, a sigh of relief towards the end of the performance. It was a peaceful hour but alienating, leaving little mark on this reviewer but a vague sense of confusion and disbelief.

NoFit State Circus: Mundo Paralelo ¦ Photo: Kiran Ridley

NoFit State Circus: Mundo Paralelo

NoFit State Circus: Mundo Paralelo ¦ Photo: Kiran Ridley

At LIMF this year NoFit State Circus – known more usually for their large-scale tented productions Immortal and tabú – bring us Mundo Paralelo, a show for proscenium arch theatres directed by circus novice Mladen Materic, the Serbian director of Theatre Tattoo, and performed by a troupe of eleven international performers. Mundo Paralelo translates as ‘parallel world’, and in his direction Materic challenged the performers to find new ways to connect with their audiences while at the same time inviting the audience to explore the intersection between the parallel worlds of circus and theatre. The result is a form of circus reinvented for a brick-walled environ, a dreamy, very muted and sombre circus, laced through with beautiful music (in a kind of Goran Bregović & Emir Kusturica style, gorgeous and heartstring-pulling) and shot through with a French style of abstract visual theatre.

So, commencing with lights on in the auditorium, the performers come on stage, like they’re just setting up for a days rehearsal. Lights go down on the audience, and the stage lights come up… the world of make believe meets the real world. Near impossible feats of human skill become the norm. It’s quite a disparate band of performers. The programme notes say that ‘the Angelics help the Humans transcend the boundaries of the physical world’ yet who is angelic and who is mortal is never clear. There’s a woman on a rope and a man on a ladder trying to attain her; a top hatted man, who we presume must be the ringmaster comes by on a Penny Farthing bicycle; there’s a knitting lady and tank-top wearing bloke being clumsy to accordion music; and a joyous flying trapeze piece at the end – yet much of this show literally feels ‘clunky’. A low tightwire is threaded through a spectacular looking metal ‘S’ curved like a double skipping rope, which you expect to be used to dramatic effect, but which isn’t – and this isn’t the only example of redundancy. The show has a lot of rigging and equipment, yet the pieces that used the kit weren’t as memorable nor as enchanting as the simpler scenes – such as the unerring three-ball juggling of a quietly acrobatic Frida Odden Brinkman, or the wonderful comic trapdoor ‘slapstick’ where white balls pop up from below stage to the puzzlement of a befuddled circus fellow. I was glad I was sitting close enough to enjoy such delicate play as a lovelorn routine where a chap vied for the attentions of a sulking aerialist by enchanting her with his ability to turn water from a glass into crystal contact balls – a beautiful, dexterous and tender scene, yet one that must have been far too small to have been visible for the audience at the back of the vast Queen Elizabeth Hall.

Mundo Paralelo leaves you feeling rather puzzled and wanting something more – not in terms of spectacle; just more of a conclusion or development for some of the scenes, and a bit more rhyme or reason to some of the equipment. Yet the beautiful dexterous and tender moments remain vivid, carried along by music that I could have listened to for the rest of the day.

www.nofitstate.org

Travelling Light: Cinderella

Travelling Light: Cinderella

Travelling Light: Cinderella

Travelling Light’s playful production of Cinderella goes down the Grimm route, presenting characters with real problems, real hopes and desires, and real dark undersides. It’s an accessible and often very funny show with enough magic and wonder to keep almost the youngest of kids in thrall, and enough experimentation and new ideas to engage the most cynical of scrooges.

Subtle direction allows the quality of the acting, design and live music to shine through, although it also means that the show takes a while to get going. The characters are slow-burners, but by the time the bird-spotting, sheltered but hugely charismatic Prince Charming has met tom-boy dreamer Ella, the audience is well down the route of caring what happens to them. The wicked stepmother rather lacks wickedness, but her children are fantastic as a hoity-toity little madam and her brother who is forced into drag for the royal ball, being better at acting the ‘suitable match’ than his saccharine sister.

The show’s simple visual design pleasingly complements the themes. Rather than a ‘fairy godmother’ character, Ella spends her time with the birds of the forest, who help her when she is in need. This bird chorus is made up of the rest of the seven-strong cast, dressed in trendy natural chunky knits and owly specs. The effect verges on Gap-advert – but the playful music and movement turn this to comedy and the birds are a very appealing part of the storyline. At the royal ball, the stepmother and siblings parade around in hideous hot pink frilly gowns and bows, a delightful contrast to the careful prince’s beautiful self-designed salmon-pink satin ruffled shirt.

Magical live music is provided by the Bower brothers, and the company sing, dance and interact with the audience with real confidence and a sense of fun. Gentle pantomimic elements deepen the audience’s involvement, and the whole beautifully crafted piece is framed by a simple string of Chinese lanterns that become party lights in the second half for the royal ball. There are clear stylistic comparisons to be made with Kneehigh here, but Travelling Light have some original and imaginative ideas, which is no mean feat when telling a story that, as the show’s programme reminds us, ‘has roots in every corner of the world and has been re-told hundreds, even thousands of times’.

www.travellinglighttheatre.org.uk