I am back in the dark, another cavernous, high-ceilinged Victorian brick storage space, a former warehouse this time. Guided by ushers, we sit or stand or move as they tell us, following the rhythm of the light. All the performers (although specimen might be a better term) are encased in glass: rectanglar cages; an oversized jam jar; a giant test tube.
The superb lighting design introduce us to various characters:
a narrator, grey and faded but still elegant, a gossip, talking and talking away into her phone (who is on the end? Is there anyone listening?);
a pretty young woman in brightly coloured 50s clothes, but she is nervous and on edge and one thinks of Edward Hopper and Dennis Hopper and David Lynch;
a voluptuous woman, her naked belly oozing out over the top of her trousers, then pressed against the glass, water ripples at the bottom of her cage, is it rising?
a young woman, who we realise as the lighting changes is lying on patch of grass inside her cabinet;
a woman trapped inside a jam jar, insect like, she balances on her hands like they were the legs of a stalk, and flashes a scream; a Francis Bacon harpy made flesh;
an office worker, trapped in his office, battling the anglepoise and the routines of drudgery Sisyphus rolling his boulder up the hill;
a vamp on a pedestal in cocktail dress, lonely and forlorn; and
twins, or possible lovers, locked head to toe, like yin and yang, in a circular box, viewed by us from a circle of stools up above.
The text told by the narrator down the phone is by Alice Oswald and is really good – thankfully you get a copy on the way out. She talks of a village, but there is something strange about it, presumably rural, the village seems to be disintegrating, mired in death, as the woman reports what she sees and hears. The text has traces of Beckett and Alan Bennett, but also reminded me of Robert Ashley, it had a kind of symphonic quality.
We gather fragments of each person’s story, a sense of their idiosyncrasies and their pain, no mere ciphers or metaphors these.
This really is a superb performance piece, moving and profound, with real gravitas.
Lovers of Victorian freak shows and cabinets of curiosities, 1940s-1950s settings, steam/cyber punk etc will love this.
The superb lighting design introduce us to various characters:
a narrator, grey and faded but still elegant, a gossip, talking and talking away into her phone (who is on the end? Is there anyone listening?);
a pretty young woman in brightly coloured 50s clothes, but she is nervous and on edge and one thinks of Edward Hopper and Dennis Hopper and David Lynch;
a voluptuous woman, her naked belly oozing out over the top of her trousers, then pressed against the glass, water ripples at the bottom of her cage, is it rising?
a young woman, who we realise as the lighting changes is lying on patch of grass inside her cabinet;
a woman trapped inside a jam jar, insect like, she balances on her hands like they were the legs of a stalk, and flashes a scream; a Francis Bacon harpy made flesh;
an office worker, trapped in his office, battling the anglepoise and the routines of drudgery Sisyphus rolling his boulder up the hill;
a vamp on a pedestal in cocktail dress, lonely and forlorn; and
twins, or possible lovers, locked head to toe, like yin and yang, in a circular box, viewed by us from a circle of stools up above.
The text told by the narrator down the phone is by Alice Oswald and is really good – thankfully you get a copy on the way out. She talks of a village, but there is something strange about it, presumably rural, the village seems to be disintegrating, mired in death, as the woman reports what she sees and hears. The text has traces of Beckett and Alan Bennett, but also reminded me of Robert Ashley, it had a kind of symphonic quality.
We gather fragments of each person’s story, a sense of their idiosyncrasies and their pain, no mere ciphers or metaphors these.
This really is a superb performance piece, moving and profound, with real gravitas.
Lovers of Victorian freak shows and cabinets of curiosities, 1940s-1950s settings, steam/cyber punk etc will love this.
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