This evening’s performance of “UnTaPped” at Manchester’s cabaret space Theatre Impossible was created and performed by students from the Arden School of Theatre. It was an eclectic selection of pieces from students on the performance maker course; and featured everything from waltzing corpses to pelvic thrusting into pasta.
The first piece was “The Death Of You”, involving about twenty performers smeared in grey, and initially draped unmoving all over the floor and the furniture as the audience entered. Once everyone was seated, they sprang into life. Very alert, quick-moving corpses: they had the audience completely surrounded; and went into a high-energy frenetic piece of physical theatre without words that was powerful immersion theatre, as well as ensemble performance of a high standard. The story, as far as I could pick up, was that the corpses surrounded people who were locked out of their houses at night and couldn’t find their keys, drained their life away, and took them down to a sort of grey underworld where nobody knew anything and sort of bumbled around in a lost daze. Overseeing everything was an icy Corpse Queen.
Next were several sound installations, and I listened to “Detective Tri And The Impossible Murder” by Noah Ross. This was a detective story about the murder of a writer of detective stories, and was delivered in a satirical style, with a neat twist at the end. Noah Ross also performed the voices of all the characters.
Back to the main stage for “Friendshit”, created and performed by Georgia Dodd and Stacie Tilsley. Two friends, who had known each a long time but hadn’t seen each other for a long time, kept a marked distance from each other on opposite sides of the stage as they went through all sorts of relationship dynamics, finally ending in resolution.
My next favourite, after “The Death Of You”, was “You Before Me”, created and performed by Kellie Colburt and Kayleigh Rough. The two friends began talking about their mothers. Then, it turned out, their (real-life) mothers were in the audience, and were brought up on stage. The girls whipped off their dressing gowns to reveal they were dressed exactly like their mothers. Then they involved their fathers, who were also in the audience. The mothers must have known they were going to be put on stage, but plainly had no idea what to expect after that. Colburt and Rough took a very simple premise, structured it with plenty of changes in dynamics and regular elements of surprise, and created a piece of theatre that was fresh, engaging, touching, and like nothing I have seen before. Extra kudos to the four parents involved, who were such good sports.
In between acts, the students showcased individual talents in singing, guitar, stand-up comedy, and a dance-off between a ballerina and a street dancer. (The ballerina won!)
The final piece was “Make Pasta Great Again”, created and performed by Rory Kelly and Stacie Tilsley. Two very grotesque characters, with extra body-padding and no filters about expressing their dubious sexuality in public places, used a mixture of multi-media and live performance to get across their story of first meeting on a romantic date in a pasta restaurant, in which much real freshly-cooked pasta was used for various gross-out purposes. The date was such a success they founded a religious movement based on the worship of pasta, and then started turning it into a political party. The end message was Pasta Power, and a request for us all to start wearing colanders on our heads to show our support.
The premise of Arden’s performance maker course is: “Tools to create and perform your own work, as opposed to acting in somebody else’s.” Tonight’s offerings were ample proof of that.
Reviewer - Thalia Terpischore
on - 25/6/19
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