With 'Lands', Antler
Theatre presented an absurdist-tinged allegory of the failure of communication
as a friendship is placed under strain. Leah (Leah Broterhead) loves jigsaws.
She documents what she sees on each piece. She dances in celebration when
pieces are joined together, and she makes “a connection”. Sophie (Sophie Steer)
loves her trampoline. She spent the majority of the play’s 80-minute run-time
jumping up and down on her trampoline. At times, 'Lands' was like a reworking of Samuel Beckett’s Endgame, where two people are seemingly trapped together and
dependent on one another, all the while resentment simmers between them. Like
Beckett’s work, both Sophie and Leah break the fourth wall, usually to address
Rachel at the tech desk to play a song, or to throw a glance or line to the
audience. There’s also the element of narrative frustration at play, which 'Lands' shares with the work of Beckett.
However, again like Beckett, there are some genuinely funny moments and an
astonishing monologue near the end which is funny and tragic all at once.
As the audience entered the performance space Leah was sat at a
desk, with a microphone and a lamp positioned over a box. Using tweezers, she
grabbed a jigsaw piece and proceeded to describe what could be seen on that piece:
“Piece 104…there’s a man with a hat. A guard. A Beefeater. He’s wearing a
Beefeater hat. Is Beefeater the name of the hat or is the guard called a
Beefeater?” Meanwhile, Sophie was bouncing up and down on her trampoline. This
establishing scene continued and even when the house lights were down, and the
play had ‘officially’ commenced, the action effectively segued into the same
scene. Sophie ate a tangerine while on her trampoline and discarded the peel.
Noticing the peel distracted Leah from her jigsaw and she pointed it out. The
dialogue which followed is full of repetition and ellipses as Leah attempted to
draw Sophie’s attention to the peel. Even when that was done, Sophie showed little sign of getting off her trampoline to clear it away and Leah ended up
throwing it in the bin. Here, the characters are drawn: Leah, with her jigsaw
obsession, had an element of OCD about her, driven to distraction by a
discarded tangerine peel; Sophie, in contrast, was in no hurry to do anything
other than bounce on the trampoline.
This initial hint of a fracture in the relationship was
deepened when Leah’s lamp failed, and she tried to enlist Sophie’s help in
describing a puzzle piece. Leah absent-mindedly gave Sophie the board
containing the partially completed jigsaw and, inevitably, the pieces went everywhere. This led into a very funny piece of physical theatre as Sophie
managed to pick up about three pieces from her trampoline – while still
bouncing on it! – before Leah gave up and picked up the rest herself, barely
containing how distraught she was that her work on the puzzle has gone to waste.
After Sophie confessed that she can’t get off the trampoline, Leah realised she
had never seen Sophie away from the trampoline and set about trying to get her
off it. This section of 'Lands' was very
funny with elements of slapstick (especially when Leah stood on a chair and
proceeded to slap Sophie’s face) and the rapport between Brotherhead and Steer was fantastic. Yet Sophie showed no sign of dismounting from her precious
trampoline. Not even Leah miming to “Don’t Give Up” by Peter Gabriel (featuring
Kate Bush) was enough to lure her away. When Sophie did step off, it wasn’t long
before she’s back on the trampoline. Eventually, brute force succeeded, and Leah
literally dragged the trampoline away from Sophie mid-bounce. A tussle ensued,
and Sophie dragged Leah’s precious, completed, favourite jigsaw puzzle off her
desk. The puzzle dispersed into its constituent parts, much like the
relationship between the two characters. Leah was upset, Sophie resumed her
trampoline activities, and she sang Woodie Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land”:
“This land was made for you and me,” she was, in her way, apologising. Leah
seemingly accepted the apology eventually, after Sophie tried to organise the
jigsaw pieces and Leah became very excited at the prospect of doing the puzzle
again, as a team. Alas, Sophie went back to her trampoline and the hurt between
the pair grew anew: “You don’t understand!” they both yelled at one another – neither
one willing to hear the other one out.
This tension escalated into a full-on rant from Leah who declared that she didn’t care about Sophie, or anyone, or anything. The only thing she
cared about was her jigsaw and she couldn’t concentrate while Sophie’s trampoline
creaked with every bounce. As Sophie refused to get off her trampoline, her
‘land’, Leah ordered Rachel to put her in darkness and play some music to drown
out the sound of the trampoline. As David Bowie’s “Modern Love” played, Leah
directed her lamp over to Sophie and she bounced in the spotlight. This is how
we left Leah and Sophie, still with one another, both doing what they care
about, and presumably doomed to repeat the cycle again.
'Lands' is an
interesting, if unconventional, piece of theatre and the performances of both
Brotherhead and Steer are fantastic; Steer for her ability to put in a performance
whilst on a trampoline and Brotherhead excels as Leah gets more angry and
desperate and her ranting monologue near the end is delivered with considerable
skill. The two performers work well together, and the play is well directed. It
does, however, feel a little overlong – perhaps trimmed down to an hour it
would have more impact as the nature of the piece means that there is no clear
driving force behind the narrative and it does feel as though it is marking
time in places. Nevertheless, it is refreshing to see a modern-day take on the
‘Theatre of the Absurd’ and there are some very funny moments. A solid piece of
theatre and entertaining to boot.
Reviewer - Andrew Marsden
on - 1/11/18
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