The Alchemystorium

As The Edinburgh Fringe approaches, I am trying to empty my inbox before it reaches critical mass. Already I have permanently deleted last year’s Fringe  PR, an entire sequence of emails from a failed romance and most of my warnings from an American astrologer than I must buy this magic pendant to avoid further financial mayhem. In the meantime, I am replying to every company who have the words “physical theatre” in their press release.

Gomito Productions got my attention because they seem to be dealing with at least three of my current preoccupations: coffee, love and devised performance. The Alchemystorium – the name is cool enough to get me excited – promises supernatural service from a Total Theatre Awards nominated company.

Artistic Director Amelia Bird has eschewed more conventional definitions to name Gomito’s style as Visual Theatre. “Although our work has a lot of physical elements and we often talk loosely about a physical style,” she explains. “I think the term 'physical theatre' conjures up something dance based and acrobatic: we try to avoid setting up those expectations. Similarly we only produce original plays, but we wouldn't say we created 'new writing'- although technically we do. The term has become so much a part of the marketing language of text-based plays that it would be confusing!” 

I claim to hate Aristotle, but spend most of my time inventing new categories of performance. While I justify this as a useful guide for my reader, it can be an excuse for me to avoid actually talking about content. Bird, fortunately, articulates a far more interesting reason for innovating descriptions.

“The  term visual theatre is so broad:  for us, it means theatre which could include puppetry, choreography and integral design,” she emphasizes.  “It means a sensory spectacle where aesthetics are not the backdrop to a text, they are means by which a story is told. Like much theatre jargon I doubt that it speaks that clearly to every audience member, but the word 'visual' is at least a pointer that you shouldn't come expecting a radio play.”

Indeed, The Alchemystorium is a wordless play – a blessed relief in a Fringe that has as many exciting new scripts as my front porch has unopened bills. But music – both original and familiar – fills the silence. “Around eighty per cent is soundtracked:  we love music for creating atmosphere. Our composer Philippa Herrick is an integral part of the process of making a new play. Unusually for Gomito we're using a few existing, well known love songs in The Alchemystorium, partly for comic effect and partly to create the feeling of fantastical, nostalgic romance which is important for one of our characters.”

Bird began the creative process with a clear vision. “I wanted to make a play about love,” she says, before adding that Gomito’s history encouraged her to seek a new approach.  “We’ve  made quite a few pieces with an ensemble of multitasking storyteller/puppeteers, and  I was keen to experiment with a new type of character to guide the audience. Thinking about characters who could entertain an audience, experience love from an unusual perspective and logically bring objects to life to create some fantastical theatrical visuals I pitched the Gomito team the idea of 'Theatre Witches'; part clown, part witch, three characters who make love potions.” 

From here, process took over, Bird expands. “We devise shows very playfully and improvised with characters and love scenes and an assortment of magical objects before structuring and re-structuring and a storyline.” This devising approach is strongly collaborative.  “We shared experiences of romances, friendships, and working in coffee shops as well as theatre, music, artwork, comedy, circus and films which have conveyed love well.”

The British theatre has made a fetish out of the script as a blueprint, and Bird is almost apologetic for her style. “It sounds horribly disorganised on paper, but it's actually a very rigorous process to generate a wealth of material, before weeding out unclear ideas as the story passes the checkpoint of each deviser.” Even the original inspiration eventually dissolved. “The witch characters dropped away and love potions mutated into coffee.”

It isn’t just an intellectual taste for this sort of magical story-telling, eclectic creation and imaginative content that excited me about The Alchemystorium: it is the powerful use of these aspects to home in on a subject that is familiar and make it uncanny. The lack of spoken word becomes, in itself, a fascinating alternative to the blather of most plays, and a rich source of meaning.

“Although we decided that the strange characters of have lived together so long that they don't talk, we also made the decision that if they needed to they could talk,” Bird clarifies. “This led us to using quite a lot of gestural noises like sighs or laughs. In rehearsal we worked on making sure that there was no point where an audience would think this would be better conveyed by speaking. Fingers crossed that we've succeeded in making the wordlessness a highlight, not a source of frustration!”