Fatherland @ The Arches

It's tempting to describe any Nic Green performance as an event: after her Trilogy became a shining example of a new wave of feminist theatre that has emerged in the past five years, her influence on theatre in Glasgow - specifically on performance that tends towards live art - has been huge. Feminism, and redefining female nudity on stage, have been defining issues for much work that has come from the Royal Conservatoire, Green's alma mater and her approach, combining down-to-earth observations and an expansive, environment focussed philosophy is distinctive and accessible.

Certainly, this one-off presentation of Fatherland has attracted a large crowd and the enthusiastic applause reflects Green's popularity. 

However. Green does not seem to be chasing the grand statements that marked Trilogy: Fatherland is far more intimate, and short. With only a drum beat for backing - and a bagpipe solo in the finale - Green is alone on stage, in circle, reflecting on a single meeting with her biological father. She develops her fleeting memory of this experience into a wider meditation on Scotland (via a Scottish fling dance) as a fatherland, and evokes masculinity's tropes through a very smart suit and the chanting of the audience.

Green adapts the movements of the fling to her own body, building towards a finale that celebrates its energy power (arms held aloft, like The Monarch of the Glen's horns). Whether Green is evoking Scotland's landscape to become her father, or recognising that it has nurtured her as an artist in the way a father shapes a child, Fatherland  is a personal ritual, an artist testing what masculinity means for her - she removes the suit gradually, finding freedom from the constriction of shirt and trousers - and suggesting meaning in the traditional Scottish elements of dance and the whisky (free to the audience). 

The format, ironically, shies away from the big event or statement. Like Ron Athey, she confounds expectation and offers allusive references to grand ideas without settling on fixed meanings. For all the enthusiasm of the audience, it is an introduction to a conversation (designed to fit perfectly within a festival, short and pithy), to engage with other works, other ideas, a starting point rather than a conclusion.

My Shrinking Life (Immediate Response Required)

Dream is not destiny: the body is. There's no escape if nuture triggers the trap nature nutures. He fades in and out of the performance, his own anxiety replacing those faked out in front of the audience and the transmission all the more immediate for the imperfections in its signal.

"What the hell's going on down there, soldier? I can't seem to a fix on a consistent message."

The angel knelt before the Principality and offered a scroll. " She's taking soundings from her interior, sir. The mood and themes are in constant flux and her hope is echoing hollow."

The Principality knows the pattern. It is known in certain circle as The Belgian Fluctuation. In place of the expected and lineal plot, the action shifts from episode to episode. Temporal coherence is sacrificed for a more visceral reaction.

One moment, she is a young woman of perhaps eighteen, her life ahead of her. Then a flicker, a moment's glitch and she's older, reflecting on her ambitions and bitter that she succeeded. The ghost of the 1950s is prowling in her corridors, demanding a physical perfection expressed by the enactment of exact social conventions.

The audience is laughing in that special way, like middle-class Romans chuckling at the humour in a crucifixion. Bad words spluttering inbetween thoughtful monologues, a young man's voice becomes robotic as he observes the specimen.

"Now the word virus has infected him, too. Shit. He always was vulnerable, all that time he spent in Tramway in the last decade." The Principality glanced at the angel and grimaced. "He does this when he can't pin down the meaning to a series of simple statements. He gets the idea he's William Burroughs and sprays the page with random sentences."

The three young people are at the butt end of the party, languid and dreaming of freedom. It's three in the morning, everyone else has gone home and they are left buzzing from the drugs and high their own potential. It's the ultimate irony, the fantasy of youth as the darkness closes in on them. Like a flashback at the end of a horror movie, when the characters, all hacked to pieces by the nameless horror, are seen in happier times.

"Who is responsible for this?" The angel nodded towards the locked door. A single sentence stuck in a groove. "I don't believe in God, but I think there is something.. spiritual."

"Alison Peebles, sir. I don't understand why. She's such a good actor. She could have just gone for Shakespeare or Chekov.

"Someone let Lies Pauwels in, too. It's the fucking Belgian thing. None of this would matter if the bloody critic hadn't decided to join in the fun."

The angel pulled up her dress and revealed her legs. A tattoo on the flesh, five stars in an occult circle. It's never enough to reveal the suffering, it has to be felt. Biology's a bloody science, the details of the hospital, waiting room and operating theatre, hang above the stage. A child tips a pile of medicines and crutches onto the floor. The dancers show off their moves... the world's just a procession of people displaying their ability.

"They are using their ability to walk like a theatre company in the Fringe uses good reviews. It's an implicit warning of superiority."

Ladies and Gentleman, my final guest for the evening needs no introduction. Friend to the soliloquy, companion of the alternative interpretation. Alison Peebles is a national treasure. I once had a fantasy that Scottish theatre could be a mixture of the European love of devising and the English love of a good script. Alison - may I call you Alison? - had reminded us all that is still possible. When the trigger finger twitched, she was neither brave nor tragic. Instead, she was honest. `

My Shrinking Life on tour

Ma Biche et mon lapin

"The object, its poetry and its misuses have always had a strong place in arts. It was already an important strand in the Dada movement or with the surrealists for example. These experimentations with familiar objects are interesting because they enable the performers to build a connection based on an agreement with the audience. For example: if the performer holds a banana like a revolver this banana IS a revolver. If everyone plays the game than it creates a great complicity between the performers and the audience and everything becomes possible."

Ah, complicity between the audience and the performers. No one talks about it much - at least not in the bar after the show - but it really is at the core of the theatrical experience. With the possible exception of those times I have been so high on the brilliance of an artist that I mistook what was happening on stage for a dream or a vision from God (yes, I am talking about Iona Kewney here), I tend to think that performance is happening outside my consciousness. But after throwing a shoe at Audience (Fringe 2011), I have become fascinated by the idea that the true performance happens in my mind, man.


And that, in a final attempt to pull my pontifications back into line with the actual subject of the article, is where puppetry is magical. Collectif Aïe Aïe Aïe - who provided my introductory quote, are coming to the Fringe to poke at couples using little more than their hands and a knitted rabbit. 

Collectif Aïe Aïe Aïe, being from France, probably have a stronger connection to the idea of puppetry as an experimental art form - European puppetry includes works that get inside the mind of a serial killer and contemplate the awkward sensation of being suspended between two worlds. With the Institut Francais backing them up, and a previous Fringe success under their belts, the Collectif are ready to challenge that... horrible old cliche... notion that... I am sick of saying it... puppetry is just for children.  


Why the Fringe?
We were already performing at the Fringe in Two Johnnies Live Upstairs at the Institut Francais last year.  We were these weird scientists who were experimenting crash tests on cute little rabbit puppets… this cranky performance made a great impression on the audience and the Institute is inviting us back this year. We are presenting a new show with rabbits again, but not only…

What will make this show stand out?

We can’t predict anything! But this is a friendly, surprising, light and delicate show and we hope it will appeal to the imagination of everyone. The stories we tell are those of couples, a topic that is pretty universal. We are approaching it with humour and a lot of self-mockery. The show is funny as well as darkly humorous. And we are very proud of our tuning on terrines and soup tureens…


Where did the idea for the show start ? 

On a shelf at home, we had these two terrines (in the shape of a hind and a rabbit), inherited from a granny. Their outdated and kitsch look amused us and gave us the idea to make a show about couples. We thought of customising them with small headphones then associating these tacky items with modern music tracks to make the ‘old’ rub shoulders with the ‘new’ and to evoke generation gaps and passing time…  


In brief, Ma biche et mon Lapin takes puppetry and filters it through an old school vaudeville style, using objects like Chaplin used bread-rolls to describe the way that couples get it on and then break up. Nothing on stage is what it seems and no object is used for what it’s usually useful for. The magic of the human mind does the rest, detecting life in the inanimate object and building an emotional meaning behind the movements. 


It's better than Paul Daniels. 

Ma Biche et mon Lapin

Institut français d’Ecosse
August 4-10, 13-17, 20-24, 12.25 pm, 3.25 pm and 5.25 pm (30 mins)

  

JackinaBox

Jackinbox are a young company - last year was their first Fringe - but they are backing up their vision of energetic theatre with two shows for 2012 that are full of intensity and passion. 99.9 Degrees is presumably an allusion to the moment before the water hits boiling point, and Moliere's Don Juan suggests that there's life in the old fox's tales of seduction yet. John Askew took some time to explain how he hopes that Jackinabox can survive the Fringe, and bring those predictable promises to life.

In all honesty the Fringe doesn't present the greatest environment for performers. The late night social aspects, the 10 hours flyering, and the want to see as much as you can makes it difficult to perform to the highest standard every night. It takes much more stamina than a normal 30 night run, both vocally and physically. So in that its a challenge. But one which is achieved by thriving on the atmosphere, being more creative and experimental than ever with both the show and advertising, and ultimately the adrenaline of the festival is something which is very addictive.  Everyone who does the full run of the fringe will find that the first week in September is almost a right off - you crash hard. 

The approach taken to the shows have been very difficult. Don Juan is a text based approach used when creating work in the past, whereas 99.9 Degrees is something created from character driven Physical Theatre, Improvisation and Devising. Because the approaches have been very different, they two shows ultimately say different things about the company. 99.9 Degrees has been worked using an approach we have wanted to use for a long time. Essentially being playful with theatre, and with no constraints we have created something which is very free and often catches the audience off guard. Don Juan suggests the company's commitment to text. Commitment in a way that allows us to put our style on an old legend, presenting this hedonist in a way we don't think anyone else has done. 

The festival itself has had a big influence on our work this year, from some if the things we saw last year. You can afford to be very different in Edinburgh, and designing work for the Fringe audience is very different from designing work for touring. That's not to say we have undermined our work in anyway, but we have created two one hour long shows perfect for the fringe audience. Young contemporary theatre has played a big role in our development so far, in that we are aiming to create work that catches the audience off guard, entertains them, and ultimately gets them to think about how theatre should be presented. In that, we look to develop either told work in a very different way, or create completely new work from our own experiences. 99.9 Degrees for example is based around memories, memories which stem from the casts experiences.  

For us it isn't a case of physical theatre fitting in. We see physical theatre as synonymous with the text, in that it is just another given circumstance (directed or choreographed movement) that the character must feel completely natural doing. We often work with layers. So the first layer is the movement, the second layer is the relationship between these characters and how that contributes to the movement, and the third layer is how the character influences the movement. When choreographing, we often start with the gesture, enlarge it into more 'elaborate' movement, and then its stems from something natural in that character. Personally I think there is nothing more exciting that explosive physical theatre, because it allows you to look at emotion, relationship, and exploration of character in a very different way. One in which each audience member can take something different from it.  

The audience can expect theatre full of those cliche buzz words - engaging, exciting, unique even? In total honesty they can expect to be entertained, and see things that they will remember amidst the wealth of great theatre at the Fringe. They will be challenged as to how they think theatre should be, and won't for a moment be thinking about anything else than what is happening on the stage. Holly Kendrick (ISDF) told me last year that the most engaging theatre 'gets off the train'. Its logical but it isn't what the audience expected to happen. That is very much about what Don Juan and 99.9 Degrees are about.       

Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2012 

1st - 27 August

C eca

'99.9 degrees' 17.30 (1h)

'Don Juan' 18.45 (1h)

The Submarine Show

It's my ambition to make my criticism interesting enough to detain the odd reader -it's difficult enough in the first place, when even I'd rather be playing Avenger's Alliance on Facebook than learning about theatre. Add to this my preoccupation with the more marginal forms of performance - as comedian Ashley Strand suggested, interpretative dance is top of my aesthetic tree - and I end up spending more time trying to explain what I like than actually stating why I like it.

Submarine seems like a good bet, though. The press release notes that it was "created at the Kinetic Arts Center by Jaron Aviv Hollander and Slater Brooks Penney", so it appears to slot into my anti-script, pro-devised theatre obsession, and promises physical theatre. I'm already in, but I have been burnt before: some companies have fooled me by wandering around a stage and calling it "physical", when it is really just another version of Hamlet.


Hollander goes some way to put my mind at ease. "Submarine is as physical as physical theatre gets! We are both heavily involved in dance and circus arts and we draw upon our physical skills to carry the show." The connection to dance and circus is a good one - the word is only an addition in these genres, and it fits that a physical theatre would emerge from them.


"The story, the world, and the characters are told in our own unique language of acrobatic mime supported by vocal sound effects," Hollander elaborates. "The show has no spoken language and yet every moment of a very elaborate narrative is both clear and engaging. To carry this off we have to be physically articulate and athletic. A wonderful results of this wordless language we use is that it makes the show accessible to anybody regardless of what language they speak."


It gets better: Hollander has articulated exactly why I love physical theatre: it has the potential to be both original and accessible. But, I worry, how will it stand out in the context of the Fringe, a notoriously busy arena. Hollander sounds confident.


"We are an acrobatic, a cappella foley mime duet alone in our genre: we engage the audience in a way that few other shows do." 
But are there laughs? The Fringe tends to demand them...
"The show is not only engaging and funny is it offers a unique theatrical experience. Historically this show has attracted most of its audience on word-of-mouth. In every other context the show has created buzz, we believe it will do the same in Edinburgh."

Hollander's claims to the circus are not false: he was in Cirque du Soleil - I might quibble with their aesthetic but not the skill and technique - and Submarine evolved from improvisation around a single sentence: Hollander said to Penney "hey, we are in a submarine!" Taking the idea on the road, they honed the story, as the trapped submariners cross terrains and seek an escape from the bottom of the sea. An encouraging sign was the award for Techie's Choice at the San Francisco Fringe. The techies get to see all the shows, all the time. If they still enjoy it when awards time comes around, something is going right.


" Almost every moment of the show was created in an improvised moment and then refined through repetition," Hollander says. "We began with a wonderful limitation: this proves to be the improvisational equivalent of superhighway. This small cramped space with lots of buttons, switches, and levers lead us toward what still seems to be unlimited possibility."


Even now, as the pair make their first visit to edinburgh, the development continues. "No two shows will be the same!" Hollander promises. "I recommend everybody come to see the show at least three times. There are a few parts of the show that are deliberately unplanned, where we just get to play. Some of the biggest laughs often come from these spontaneous moments."


Back to my original musings on physical theatre, and Hollander has cleared up a few of my concerns. The reason I like devised pieces is exactly because of the potential freedom for each performance to be unique. The lack of a script also makes the show easy to translate into different countries, and the open possibilities of improvisation allow humour and pathos. Now, if I can just keep off Facebook for a few hours...


C too, venue 4, Edinburgh Festival Fringe Dates: 2–27 Aug (not 14)
Time: 16:55(0hr50)
Ticket prices: £8.50-£10.50 / concessions £6.50-£8.50 / children £4.50-£6.50

85a get Svanky

For Glasgow Film Festival 2012' "Crossing the line" program, 85A ecstatically present the work of genius Czech filmmaker, Jan Svankmajer, in all its demented glory! Each short film showcased this evening will be housed inside specially constructed theatres, coaxing his surreal imagery off the screen and into life before you!
Tailor-made installations, costumed performers, a cosy bar, all beckon you ‘down to the cellar’, and with the main cinema-space ultimately transforming into a thumping discothèque… a night at the megaplex, this is not! Přijít! Vidět! Slyšet!


85a are looking increasingly like the heirs to the great Glasgow Miracle - assuming that the anti-art law doesn't lead to a mass exodus of creatives to Berlin. A collective of talents based in the visual arts, 85a have been busy making films, building installations and events - including The Phantom Band's Christmas special at Stereo - and settled into The Glue Factory as a home. Svankmajer was a natural choice for them: surreal in his mixture of live action and animation, he gives personality and soul to inanimate objects without losing a dark, even sinister atmosphere. And while the film selections were imaginative and thrilling - his big hits like Alice were eschewed for a rounded retrospective - it was 85a's design of The Glue Factory that pulled away from the "night at the multiplex".


There's a palpable sense of occasion to the re-modelling of the space: one film is projected inside an old boiler, another in a home-made house. Grimm cabaret duo Louna introduce two programmes, before throwing down with an especially bloody number: affiliate Spud lends an electronic soundtrack to a tale of existential dread and humour. While Svankmajer's Prague is often the star of his shorts - as Missy Lorelei notes, The Ossuary is a twisted tourist advert - 85a make The Glue Factory a character in their play. Death, clad in monkish cloak and pale face, wanders around the rooms, collecting an audience for a special showing: that this seems normal, not surreal, is a testament to the thoroughness of 85a's vision.


Throughout the films, Svankmajer invites comparisons with Kafka, filtered through a sensibility informed by slap-stick comedy and compassion: yes, the universe is hostile and strange, but it can be funny to watch. Throughout the evening, 85a take the background of The Glue Factory - it's an old, disused space and has a health'n'safety nightmare vibe - and convert it into a fun palace for adults, with popcorn. 

I first appreciated Junction 25 during their astonishing examination of family ties, From Where I Am Standing. While it might not have been as blisteringly vicious as last year’s Teenage Riot—in fact, it is a rather gentle, respectful piece—it revealed a Scottish company that were taking on the lessons of the Europeans who had been visiting Tramway for the past twenty years. Devised work that came directly from the lives of the performers, confident episodes performed by accomplished actors, an atmosphere of fun and complicity between the stage and the audience: it almost seemed irrelevant that J25 are a youth theatre.

Jess Thorpe (Artistic Director)

We started Junction 25 as a response to our feeling about the need to represent the voices of young people in contemporary performance. There seemed to be a lot of theatre schools working with traditional forms but little that saw young people speaking for themselves about their own experience in their own time. Then it was  about delivering this work within a 'professional' context so that an audience might be able to view it as more than a participatory experience but also as a valid piece of art in its own right. 

We were lucky in that this feeling corresponded with Tramway's wanting to develop a group for young people that reflected its programming at the time.

At first it was a challenge for us to find ways to communicate a new style of working for young people. It wasn't about changing the ideas or making the work 'less rigorous' or 'less difficult' it was about finding the right way to have conversations about experimental art with people who had never been seen it before. It was exciting to introduce new methods as young people often think about theatre in one way - as being a character or 'acting' because it is the dominant form and most of their experience. It was hard for some of them to imagine what was interesting about 'just being themselves' but in time this has changed and the culture of the group really helps to support new members as they discover the way we work together.

The style of working has clear similarities with the work of Glas(s) Performance: in some ways is inevitable but it is important to recognize the distinction - Junction 25 is our collaboration with young people. It does not mean 'Jess and Tashi'. It means what we do together - a collective. It means young people trying out new ideas and working together to explore the world in which they experience. They need to and can speak for themselves. 

Megan (Performer)

I like how the how the show explores lots of different types of love, its not just about the typical romantic love. The devising process of the show was challenging but once we gained momentum the show came together in no time. Its such a personal show, its defiantly one of my favourites because it is all about us, our experiences. One of the challenges was trying to connect all the different stories together and make sure it was fluid, but thankfully we pulled it together, it makes me proud to be in it. 

Scott Ramage (Performer)

When the concept of the show was first announced as love I was a little unsure what to expect, although when we got started I knew straight away it wasn't just going to be about romantic love.  I was surprised as one of the first things we decided on was the name but when Nathan came out with "I Hope My Heart Goes First" quite a few people actually said "That's it".  Throughout the coming months we had a large sheet of paper spread across a wall and we all wrote ideas and feelings on it for the performance, none refused or removed.  This was then the catalyst for more activities breeding more ideas and eventually performances.  

The activities were usually either performance or question based but we still had ideas out of games that we played.  By the end we had a show.