Manchester International Festival opened last night with bells ringing in the city centre and I hot-footed it over to the Upper Campfield Market Hall for the much anticipated world premiere of Tree, a piece of mixed art-form theatre created by Idris Elba & Kwame Kwei-Armah
I arrived at what seemed like a club night and was immediately excited by the buzz created. Tree fuses together everything I love about live theatre, I was thrilled to the core by physical theatre, music and story as well as visual explosions that differed for every one attending.
Inspired by music from Elba's album Mi Mandela, Tree tells a story of family, kinship and connecting to the lineage you come from. Idris Elba, sporting a red beanie, came along for the ride.
The story follows the young, optimistic, Londoner Kaelo, as he carries out his mother's dying wishes by returning to South Africa. His instructions, we find out later, are to spread her ashes where his father is buried. Kaelo, however knows little to nothing of his father. He arrives, disorientated and sleep-deprived, to his grandmothers vast land (which unbeknown to him, he is due to inherit). Here he discovers the painful truth of his own history. The piece also covers apartheid, discrimination and separation in South Africa with flashback to scenes from the mid '80s. Kwei-Armah describes it as a 'love letter to family, to South Africa'.
Kaelo meets various characters from his mothers life, pre him; his distant grandmother, Elzebe (Sinead Cusack), his hard-faced half sister, Ofentse (Joan Iyiola) as well as Gweki, the gardener (Patrice Naiambana) or the 'boss' - as he describes himself. Naiambana's performance provides moments of much needed light-relief as well as heartfelt grief later on with wailing that still resonates in me now.
The set design (Jon Bausor) and venue play a huge part in making this piece so grand and fun, the warm, orange projection, bright reality of stage lights and the suspended performers in some scenes are welcomed for such a large audience. Choreography by Gregory Maqoma created some fantastic physical theatre pictures to take us back in time.
Audience participation is a term bandied around a lot in the theatre world but in this instance it is in it's truest form. Traditions of a sit down audience were abandoned as we were encouraged to explore and move around during the show. This audience was truly part of the piece. I was handed a placard during a protest scene and found myself part of the revolt, shouting and chanting along with the performers. The audience were questioned 'are you alive, really alive?', they were steered to create a walkway, they created the tree and some were led onto stage during a dance scene. The most notable support was as part of Ofentse's entourage, with one lady delivering a convincing speech to the eviction of Elzebe. Being 'in on the action' made connecting with this piece more intense.
As the audience joined Kaelo in finding his father's grave under the great tree we lit up our torches on phones in this intimate moment. The previous rivals discuss the things this tree has seen in all the years and they hug around it. As the question is asked “What do I do with all this hate?” Kaelo replies “we let go” and then they (or we) have a massive rave because how else should we let go but dance it out?
Tree teaches us to celebrate life after grief.
Reviewer - Cathy Shiel
on - 4/7/19
No comments:
Post a Comment