I came this evening to The Lowry to see a double bill, ‘This is not for you (PS. Sorry)’ performed by second year students of Salford University and an anniversary performance of 'Hiya, Anxiety.' Created by Debs Gatenby, co-directed by Ashley Knowles & Mark Whitelaw.
With the first show being a cast of young students I had the intention of being as kind as possible, but their manners during the second show were atrocious. There was talking, mobiles audibly going off with notification sounds throughout the auditorium and mobiles being used to type messages and pass along the row to friends next to them. One of the performers sat directly in front of me and was one of the worst culprits, talking to several people down the row from her and using her mobile. I find it so ironic that the last show I saw was 'The Empathy Experiment' a show about the anxiety we feel without our devices and tonight this cast of students were unable to appreciate another performer's show about her anxiety, straight after their own show about anxiety!
‘This is not for you (PS. Sorry)’ had a large cast on stage throughout, dressed in oversized white shirts, black trousers, and decorated with barcode motifs. They appeared to be students waiting for another to arrive, the latecomer arrives and dives into a cupboard whilst gasping for breathe. It then comes to light they are trapped in the space, a book appears, instructing them to share parts of themselves.
So begins many sequences, with the students coming forward and sharing intimate and traumatic moments with the audience. A majority of the voices were clear and travelled well. The group came together in physical movement pieces to represent dream like scenes such as the ocean and a castle, these were enjoyable as the large cast had good awareness of one another, moved together nicely and balanced spaces well.
I heard from one of the performers after the show that the stories were all true, I hope not, as an actor myself I come from schooling that using imagined circumstances is a way for an actor to keep themselves psychologically safe. If they were sharing real traumatic events I would worry about the young performers being overly exposed and becoming triggered again. It reminds of the quote from Sir Laurence Olivier 'try acting.'
The second show, 'Hiya Anxiety' by Debs Gatenby was an intimate sharing of her story of the relationship with her mentally suffering mother and how she was coping with her own struggles.
It started with Gatenby lying on the floor with a police tape outline of her body, a triangle was also taped onto the floor to represent the different statuses one can find themselves in during an argument. Whilst lying on the floor Gatenby had a desperate imagined phone call with her mother, the audience immediately laughed and warmed to her. After standing and addressing the audience Gatenby explained she had been a comedian and sharing her struggles had developed into this show.
There were many laughs throughout the show and moments when Gatenby sharing upsetting memories had an effect on her audience, that even made the students put their mobiles down for a few seconds. Gatenby is very brave to tell such a revealing history of her life and relationship with her mother, but the show failed to stir much empathy with me. The theatre conditions were cramped, not pleasant and surrounded by distracted students, Gatenby's ability to talk constantly was a measured endurance test and she herself admitted to being lost in the story at one point and going back to something she had missed.
The story is a poignant one with so many issues not being discussed openly enough by those in society going through them. Maybe due to the conditions I was surrounded by I was too distracted to appreciate the piece and at another time could have admired such a display of emotion and honesty more.
Reviewer - Kerry Ely
on - 22/1/20
No comments:
Post a Comment