The final year students of the Theatre And Performance course at The Arden Theatre School in Manchester once again presented their annual 2 -day festival known as 'UnTaPped' (the TaP being "Theatre and Performance"). This year they chose the interesting and atmospheric theatre space at Impossible, Manchester. One very large room which is a combination of theatre, bar and lounge area all rolled into one. The stage was surprisingly large, but, I feel, more suitable for burlesque, magicians or solo cabaret spots rather than theatre presentations. However, since the room was so large, seperate areas (booths) had been allocated for smaller more intimate performances or one-to-ones.
Each year the students decide on a theme to run through the many and varied performances and installations they create, and this year they chose 'Circus'. I am completely uncertain why they chose this as the only concession to this theme the entire time I spent in their company [almost 5 hours] was their "Opening Ceremony" in which a 'ring master' spoke - in rhyme - to introduce the troupe and their "specialities". Once this 5 minute opening of the festival had passed, poor circus had flown through the window!
What became immediately apparent after the opening ceremony was that even though the individual performers obviously knew where and when they were performing, no-one else seemed to, and as performance areas / spaces were not clearly labelled and no individual timetables displayed at each location, it did seem a little ad-hoc. Thank goodness for a programme and a tutor ot two to point me in the right direction. This was Friday afetrnoon and so audience numbers were minimal. I hope by Saturday evening - the 'busy time' - that more consistent and proficient 'ushering' will be employed.
One other major difference this year with UnTaPped is the augmentation of numbers and performances as the course's first year students were also invited to do a few things too. The first of these was a whole year group devised piece called 'The Death Of You'. A little long and in places slightly unfocused, but for a first year devised piece this was indeed very impressive and showed great ensemble acting ability. Dressed as zombies with rather scary but excellent make-up the whole group danced and moved in front of us, behind us, around us and their audience inclusion and our acquiescing to being subjected to unwitting participation in this show was extremely cleverly executed and in fact, rather fun [despite the fact that we should have been feeling slightly scared by it!]. The premise / narrative was less well definied, and I assume that it is open to interpretation; and as I saw 'humans' being scared by the arrival of 'the undead' and then turning into them and enjoying being as one of them; alongside lyrics of 'we are all dead - don't be afraid of death - it is the one thing certain to happen to all of us - be prepared' along with the Everly Brothers singing that all we have to do is dream... you can put two and two together...! Comedic and macabre, and an excellent start to their training. Very enjoyable.
During my time there I participated in two one-to-one 'installations'. The first of these was Georgia Dodd's 'A Cuppa And A Catch-up'. As I was invited into her "booth" the kettle was boiling and she made me a lovely cup of tea and we chatted for a little whilst eating bisuits, before inviting me to wear headphones and listen to the pre-recorded speech she had prepared for me to hear. Despite the whole thing lasting only 5 minutes, there was much in what she said which resonated, and I would have happily stayed longer and chatted more. Her views on self-image, self-worth, and how we as people tend to always be happy to see the negative sides of our personality and 'brag' about those, happy to tell others the nagative sides to their personalities and 'bitch' about those etc - but we rarely acknowledge the good in ourselves or others. Yet, we like to think of ourselves as 'good', and as always doing the best etc. There were various examples of this, one being social media and how we react and interact with it. Much of what she had to say resonated on very personal and familial levels. Her lovely. smiley chatty build-up to the listening had done its trick and lulled me into the false sense of security, and I left her 'booth' quite emotional.
The second five minute installation was 'Behind Closed Calls' by Kayleigh Rough. She had, unbeknownst to the six people involved, recorded mobile telephone conversations she had had with them: her mum, her boyfriend and 4 other close friends, and condensed and amalgamated these into snippets lasting the 5 minutes. I suppose the premise behind this is that we, as audience members, are quite happy to be voyeuristic and watch 'life' portaryed on a stage - because we know it isn't real. However, when faced with listening in on someone else's private conversations (especially when that person is sitting opposite us judging our reactions) - how do we feel then? We listen to thousands of conversations in our lifetime which are overheard or deliberately listened-in on [on trains, buses, on the street, in the park] - people are quite happy to obliviously share their chattting with whomsoever happens to be in earshot. The idea of listenning to these as a deliberate act of aural voyeurism, knowing that these 6 people do not know these snippets of their conversations are being used in this way, makes it quite illicit and thrilling. However, I found that the volume for this telephone call was not pitched correctly and at times too loud, distorting and sometimes crackling, and so rather than being able to concentrate on what was being said and by whom, it became rather jumbled. Perhaps using longer snippets of conversation and fewer different voices would have helped to make this a more meaningful experience.
For me, the next piece on my packed agenda was a short duologue by Jessamine Grace Vowles and Bella Curtis, which - in almost a continuation from Dodd's 5 minute cuppa, lifted the lid of these girls' beauty regime and their make-up routine. The ridiculousness of it all, and why do women feel the need or the pressure to wear make-up at all. Today's beauty standards, including The Kardashians and fake boobs, are handled with irony and sarcasm in 'We Are Not The Show'.
In a very tiny space away from the main room, big enough only for one seated peformer and 4 standing audience members, was another piece of installation theatre. We stood and watched as Jessamine Vowles entered to a jolly, happy, bright and jaunty song being played. She is sad, almost crying, and she has a guitar. She is about to play / sing for us. She tries several times but emotion takes hold and she fails. Dejected she gives up and walks out. We want to know more, we want to know some background to this, but we are given nothing and this 5 minutes in her company makes uncomfortable viewing. The proximity of us / her makes you want to reach out and hug her, tell her it will all be Ok, and yet we know this is just a performance, just an act. We would like to hear her sing, to play. we would like to see her smile...and we leave without any of these being fulfilled. 'The Broken Peace' would make an excellent start to a much longer piece of theatre.
'XX Dance' was a piece of Live Art - a dance - on continual loop - performed by Kellie Colbert and Bella Curtis. Foodstuffs were arranged in a line in front of them, as well as a tray full of glitter and a whip. After the first time of the song, danced without interruption, they took turns to cover the tip of the whip in glitter and self-flagellate before choisng an item of food [cherries, milk, honey, eggs, ketchup etc] and either destroying it, pouring it over themsleves or slapping each other in the face with it. At the end of each repeat of the song they chose a female audience member and handed them a white rose. This went on for a considerable time, which saw the two of them, and the floor around them become very messy indeed. There was a feminist message to all of this, as each foodstuff represented things like menstrual blood, fertility, breast feeding, losing virginity, womanhood etc - and the more this was repeated the stronger the juxtaposition between the happy song and the anger-fuelled demostration; the whipping and the giving of a white rose became. It was rather imagery-full. However, I found it all somewhat distatsteful I have to admit. Not because I am a man and am against what they were purporting - nothing like that at all - but rather I would have preferred them to have found alternative items - perhaps artificial products or drawings of them - but to see so much food going to waste was for me utter sacrilege and this is what I found distasteful about this piece. Especially when either just before this or just after this there was a film being shown about Manchester's homeless! Sorry girls, but using real food went against my principals!
In amidst all of the third year films and theatre pieces, there was one 20 minute piece by an MA student called 'Download'. Wearing a Minions onesie Jess took us through a story - a part of her life which she, with humour, shared with us. It was a story of her experiences of her first time at 'Download Festival' comsuming copious amounts of alcohol and her attempts at love and friendship. There was a rather serious and sobering middle section and the piece finished on her second outing to Download Festival the following year. Impressive use of props and an entertaining and engaging narrative which was well sequenced and signalled. I enjoyed her conversational, laissez-faire and almost confrontational discourse.
Returning to the performances of the first year students and I was fortunate enough to be able to catch three short solo pieces under their umbrella title, 'Autobiographical'. Sadly I do not know the performers' names and so am unable to credit - but the three were....
The first of these was a young Liverpudlian girl announcing that she was bi-sexual and she was going to share a few secrets with us. sat pixie-like on the table we gathered around to hear intimite secrets from her life. The first girl she ever loved (a bitch as it turned out!), losing her virginity, and about a boy she idolised, and thought they'd be perfect for each other. The performer's engaging and chatty personality was ideal for such a piece and her unrelenting and unmittigating style worked in her favour. The second piece was Captain Manly Man; a young man with a super-hero fixation. Dressed a la Superman, and with a clever vocal and physical parody he took us through his dreams of being a super hero himself. [and who hasn't had dreams like that at one time?!] The third solo piece by a first year student was by, if she gave her real name, Nikita; and was about how she has a wheelchair-user brother and his struggle for funding and adequate care. Her mum is the only full-time carer he has and they don't receive any funding. In between a silly and light-hearted dance (ostensibly a 'game' she plays with her brother) she imparts facts and hard-hitting information to make you think and understand about her (and others') plight. An effective way to get her message across.
All the other pieces I was able to catch in the time-frame I was there were short films. I was given to understand that each of the final year students had to produce and direct their own short film and I saw 7 of these. The styles and subject matters ranged quite condiserably, but all lasted only a few minutes each. One, as already mentioned in passing, concerned the growing number of Manchester's homeless, whilst another talked about video games and the pointlessness of it finishing with the line,"what's the point of escaping reality through games when games are already your reality?". Another, quite predictably touched on body image again, and what we choose to wear not automatically giving signals to others as "permission"; whilst my favourite film of the ones I watched was a rather abstract film using interesting cinematography, and was Kellie Colbert's rather poignant 'Root'.
Personal footnote...
This was probably the last time I will see the third years either performing together or as a student, so I should also like to take this opportunity to thank you all for allowing me to watch and crtique your work over the last three years; it has been a genuine pleasure and privilege to see you grow as performers, and I look forward to seeing you on the professional circuit very soon. My very best wishes to you all.
Reviewer - Matthew Dougall
on - 24/5/19
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