Unneeded: The Porcelain Project

Gareth K Vile is unsettled but not convinced by Needcompany.EVENT REVIEW BY GARETH K VILE.
PUBLISHED BY THE SKINNY 04 OCTOBER 2008


Even the most powerful companies fail, on occasion. Needcompany are very powerful, and The Porcelain Project is, disappointingly, a failure. Even at under two hours, it is far too long, wandering around its point and undermining some restrained, elegant and seductive dance with absurdist humour. The high concept - an installation that became a performance, a blurring of the line between ceramics and choreography – is never connected to the content – a study of the madness of kings. It has moments of interest without adding up to a fulfilling experience.

The forceful last moment, featuring an orgy of monarchs, captured in fading and flashing lights, has an intensity that emerges from nowhere. Most of the production is caught between sensual female dances and thick-set males wearing pottery noses. The sensual dances are fluid, enticing. The guys wearing vases are irritating, picking up on that absurdist tradition that invests broad slapstick with intellectual pretentions - Benny Hill in a mortar board.

While other Needcompany work has been compassionate, this emphasises the grotesque and the ugly. It does operate as a balance to the depth and humanism of pieces like Isabella’s Room, another Needcompany work. It identifies the problems of power, the domination and brutality of sexuality and the stupidity of humanity unleashed. Yet even these topics are hardly exposed, merely suggested. Everything is smothered by a light-heartedness, a cheeky wink to the audience.

Even a poor work by Needcompany has some worth. The idea is strong, the dancers elegant and the fusion of installation and dance visually striking – at least at first. Yet it never reaches out, never communicates, and the rattling, erratic soundtrack is distancing rather than encompassing. The worth is more for students of dance, in the possibility of inspiration rather than in genuine emotional impact.

Don Juan, Relevance Nil

Gareth K Vile like Don but struggles to understand what it has to say to him

EVENT REVIEW BY GARETH K VILE.
PUBLISHED IN THE SKINNY 05 OCTOBER 2008

Apart from an unsatisfying introduction, which attempts to act as an expressionist overture but ends up as vulgar mime with a burst of unnecessary nudity, this up-dating of Don Juan is sharply directed, well acted and concisely staged. Mark Springer’s sprightly Juan is sympathetic and dashing, the set is balanced between detail and suggestiveness, and the original play’s tight plotting paces the action and humour. It is a fun-packed romp that showcases pair of skilful directors and an imaginative modern translation of Goldoni’s classic.

At the same time, it feels purposeless. The central tension at the heart of Don Juan’s drama – the battle between desire and society, spiritual warfare and sensual pleasure – is barely relevant to a society that has fixated on celebrity and abandoned church because it interrupts the hangover. Bringing it up to date only heightens the irrelevance: Juan’s modern counterpart is not a lover but a businessman swine, and the late appearance of two (probably trafficked) European prostitutes casts a depressing shadow over Juan’s seductions.

Against the harsh modern commerce of sex, Don Juan makes no sense. The object of his devotion, Anna, comes across as strident, not pious. Her relationship with her father looks incestuous, not dutiful: while this might echo the filial attitudes of some women, it is a matter for psychological evaluation, not admiration. And Juan’s romps aren’t funny when they are repositioned as rape. The speeches to the audience are half-hearted justifications, and only serve to emphasise how little this play has to say any more.

But it is well-crafted. It has handsome performances, for the most part. It provides spectacle, imaginative stage-craft and doesn’t out-stay its welcome. Stripped of the rather silly hospital scene, it is a rapid-fire pleasure. Sadly, it doesn’t add anything to any modern debate, ending up rather as the live equivalent of a soap opera.

Six Acts of Love @ Tron, 2008

Andy Arnold continues to move and care at the Tron.
EVENT REVIEW BY GARETH K VILE.
PUBLISHED IN THE SKINNY 12 OCTOBER 2008

Six Acts of Love has a strong script, searching characterisation and a simple, yet effective staging. Andy Arnold’s direction is swift and terse, while Ioanna Anderson’s script features a sharp eye for realism and bursts of banter. Entertaining and precise, the plot is slightly forced towards to end – no doubt to ensure appropriate dramatic closure and allow the correct number of resonant scenes – it studies the challenges of aging from different angles, ultimately offering the sort of hope that only ever happens in fiction.

Katherine (Barbara Wilshere), a newly separated middle-aged woman, finds herself caring for her senile mother, and reflects on the ravages of time and trauma. In a plot that lurches from staged incident to quiet reflections, Katherine gradually comes to a deeper understanding of herself, discovers hope and finally love.

All of the performances are strong and capable - Una McLean captures something of the despair and humour of dementia, and Benny Young somehow brings a dignity to the role of the abandoning husband. The compassion that Anderson’s script offers to each character is moving and brave. There are no villains, only individuals trying to deal with circumstance. It is unfortunate that the narrative feels so forced that it undermines the passionate reunion of the final act of love.

Well acted, engaging ideas, a steady pace: Six Acts of Love is enjoyable and edges towards profound, relevant meditations on love, age and survival. Where it draws conclusions, it is predictable, and there is a sense that the characters are deliberately being given turns in the spot-light, rather than developing together. Not sensational but kind, Six Acts of Love has a tentative hope that would be more credible if the plot was not so jerky.

Originally Published in The Skinny: Manipulate 2008

This month's puppetry festival Manipulate at Dundee Rep relocates the marionettes art into an adult, more shadowy realm of exitential terror and nightmarish otherness. Gareth K. Vile meets the man pulling the strings.

Simon Hart, the artistic director of manipulate, has a clear vision for Scotland's new puppetry festival for adults. "We want to get across to the general audience that object theatre is more than just the Muppets." Celebrating an art form often marginalised as childish, Manipulate aims at a mature audience, introducing adult themes and stretching the possibilities of puppetery. "All of the pieces take things that might be seen as quite safe - like marionettes - and use them in a way that is unsettling. Expectations are regularly subverted."

Hosted at Dundee Rep, the manipulate Festival evolved from the collaboration of Puppet Animation Scotland and Projector Animation Festival, and emphasises the close links between puppet theatre and animation, boasting a multitude of international companies.

Puppet Animation Scotland is best known for its annual, and extensive, festival for young people, which is represented in most towns and cities across the nation. But manipulate is a more adult affair: the brochure describes the shows in terms familiar to enthusiasts of physical theatre or live art. In Light!, Campaignie Mossoux- Bonte, whom Hart acknowledges as "primarily a dance company using the body to cast complex and eerie shadows", grapples with existential terror; Stephen Mottram brings his Seed Carriers up from England to haunt the audience with visions of an insectoid humanity. Theatre Velo follows a lost soul into the further reaches of his imagination in Appel d'Air, a work that transforms mundane objects into potent symbolism.

The puppetry festival segues into Projector's Hot Animation Festival. Before this begins, the puppetry moves out of the theatre and into the community. Hart mentions that "we have five days of masterclasses, working in shadow theatre, and Stephen Mottram looking at the relationship between the puppet, the puppeteer and their relationship with the audience. We are also working with the Dundee Literacy 16 to 24 project to create a short animation film with young people." One show, Angel - is being staged in support of homeless charity Shelter. Alongside the exhibition of designs for the Cannon Hill Puppet Theatre, hosted in the Dundee Rep Foyer, these workshops and events extend the festival beyond the auditorium, and engage with future audiences and performers, as well as placing the performances in a clear social context.

Hart sees this "as an intensification of our core event, the Puppet Animation Festival, which is aimed at 3 to 12 year olds." Puppet Animation Scotland has, in the past year, taken puppetry into one hundred and fifty eight Scottish venues and has seen attendance grow to nearly twenty thousand people in 2007. Manipulate applies this enthusiastic outreach to puppetry for adults. Not content to merely stage shows, it allows the audience to engage with the medium and draw the connections between puppetry and the aesthetic languages of dance or mime.

The Festival is clearly not aimed at children: The Seed Carriers, which has been challenging audiences for a decade, takes influences from the nightmarish paintings of Bosch and the films of the Quay brothers. Hart notes that "it uses a very old technique alongside contemporary themes". Its detailed creation of a microcosmic society is disturbing and advertised as unsuitable for children in any circumstances. Likewise, Light! examines the shadow-play of existence, dwelling on the fear evoked by darkness and the body. Those familiar with the films of Jan Svankmajer or the more Gothic experiments of Tim Burton will be enthralled: those whose experience is limited to Orville might be shocked. There are moments of beauty and clarity in both works, but they are hard won and original: both works express fierce, individual visions and work towards a new aesthetic.

Most importantly, Manipulate promises to relocate puppetry and animation as mature art forms. As has been the case with comic books, they have often been derides as limited in scope or potential. While plenty of novelty acts may have repositioned themselves as adult through explicit themes or shocking tactics, Manipulate is a showcase for more thoughtful and eloquent expressions of the puppeteers art.

Arches Theatre Festival 2008

EVENT REVIEW BY GARETH K VILE.
PUBLISHED IN THE SKINNY 24 APRIL 2008

It is always best to take the Arches Theatre Festival as a bundle: visiting the odd piece runs the risk of missing something crucial, or ending up seeing all bad shows. The range of genres, and the admirably scatter-shot selection, is inclusive - although it demands a serious fortnight of underground attendance.

The two plays that won this year’s Arches Award for Directors are a gentle start. Both are script orientated, capable of transfer to Edinburgh and best respected as works in progress. Both feel like sketches: Bring Me The Head of Comrade Bukhari is in thrall to Clockwork Orange, with its juvenile delinquents and absurdist dialogue, while Sixteen falls between realism and allegory. Neither piece fully convinces, lacking powerful words or startling stage-craft: they are solid, respectable experiments from young talents.

Sixteen’s script is especially disappointing, despite three strong performances. Playing for laughs with Alzheimer’s, impotence and a comedy foreigner, it nevers grapples with the implications of its - frankly unlikely- sexual scenario. In the final third, the dissipated themes combine to create a few moments of hyper-real intensity, as mother, daughter, husband and lover exchange roles in a bizarre battle.

Bring Me The Head of Comrade Bukhari is performed equally well, with a script that delights in sharp exchanges and a cast who bounce between menace and wit. It doesn't really have much to say - the lack of detail about the characters is annoyingly vague rather than ambiguous, and prevents any real sympathy, while the moral dilemma at the heart of the play is barely considered. Bukhari suggests a possible connection between absurdism and a more socially engaged theatre. It is better praised for intentions rather than delivery.

If these two can be judged by conventional standards, both An Oak Tree and Dias De Las Noches cast off into difficult waters. An Oak Tree is Tim Crouch’s serious attempt to integrate live direction into the performance - he is joined on stage every night by a performer who has never seen the script. Dias De Las Noches is pure physical theatre - the acting equivalent of free jazz where an apparently random series of threats, tricks, dancing, nudity, skeletons, clowns and gun-shots combine to create an event that is mystifying and - depending on taste - unforgettable.

An Oak Tree explores the aftermath of a child’s death in a road accident. Crouch is both director on-stage and the awkward hypnotist-cum-child killer, who is confronted by the child’s father, who is also the victim of his hypnotic act. Once the hypnotist’s performance has collapsed, Crouch homes in on the devastation caused by the death, undercut by sudden shifts into directorial sessions. Surprisingly, this does not destroy the tension or pathos, but allows Crouch’s charming personality to redeem his grinning hypnotist. Initially he seems to be a slick showman, all naff asides and false bonhomie. He is gradually revealed as devastated, confused: the father looks to him for help, not revenge.

Teatr Novogo Fronto are in their own league: there is a vague story behind the mayhem concerning a comedy double act and a South American revolution, but this is less interesting than the sheer levels of absurd confusion they rapidly cause. Four actors take on multiple identities and chase each other around the stage in pursuit of love or death. A sense of menace pervades even the lightest moments and the frenetic pace is sustained to the explosive finale. Regret, frustration, and insecurity are all played out, evoked in the audience and flung to one side: through sheer pace and volume Dias De Las Noches attempts to by-pass rational thought. It fails to make any coherent statements: it is, however, glorious hysteria.