Due to unfortunate circumstances beyond anyone's control, these scheduled live theatre performances had to be streamed live online instead, which then came with a further set of mishaps meaning I was unable to watch the two plays at their scheduled time. I finally sat down last evening to watch the two.
The first I watched was titled 'Cacophony', which was a student led and devised piece directed by Aiden Brooks. The poor quality of audio on both the recording and my playback meant that the voice-overs were loud and clear but the students' speaking was less so. However, I did manage to hear everything (I think) in this piece.. sadly it wasn't the same story for the second piece but we'll come to that later. However what impressed me the most with this piece was not the story, not the dialogue, but the imaginative and visually beautiful use of space, movement, and especially torches and balloons (ideas which I have pigeonholed and intend to plagerise in the next piece I direct which would be appropriate for such images..!)
The story, as far as I was able to understand it, seemed to be saying that each of the members of the cast were holding a secret; they had something which they had never told anyone before, but now needed to get it off their chests; even if that meant offending someone and they were somewhat afraid to share; however one by one they do share, there is a moment of apocalypse, the moment when all the sharing has been done and the balloons (used as a beautiful metaphor throughout) all were burst. Having had the courage to unburden themselves there is a moment of release; however are there other consequences too...?
For me, the play ended about 4 minutes before it actually did; when all the cast lay down on the floor bursting their balloons in unison. I am not sure as I understood the need for, or even the reason for the final few minutes after this.
For me, the play ended about 4 minutes before it actually did; when all the cast lay down on the floor bursting their balloons in unison. I am not sure as I understood the need for, or even the reason for the final few minutes after this.
The end notwithstanding, I really enjoyed this piece; it was one of the strongest and most visually satisfying pieces I have seen produced by the Theatre And Performance students at Arden in a long while.
After this I watched their second piece, still devised and performed by the students of the Theatre And Performance degree course at Arden, but a different cast, and this time directed by Wayne Stephen Jackson. It was called 'Civic'.
For me this piece was less successful and less enjoyable. First, the sound quality was extremely poor, and as I realise this is absolutely not the students' fault, it meant that I had to more or less guess what was being said at times, and unlike the first piece the visuals didn't always go hand in glove with the speech. This piece was more narrative driven I felt, and also more thoughful and 'clever'. It seemed heavy in symbolism and more difficult to interpret without audio.
If I am to understand the story correctly, then there were a group of 10 robots / automatoms on a space craft - perhaps a penal colony, or they were prisoners being driven to a penal colony. They were given mundane tasks to complete, much like the Nazis would force their POWs to pointlessly move heavy stones from one pile to another pile and back again all day. There is a voice-over announcing that they gave up their rights a long time ago and that sacrifice means they must work for this unseen power now.
I did hear part of a speech at the beginning of the play which spoke about the play being pallindromic. This confused me - did that mean that once we hit the half-way stage of the show, we could simply play what I have already watched backwards and it would be the same as if I watched the next half forwards? No, of course it didn't, and so, I am left now, puzzling over that statement not understanding it. Nor did I understand the Schroedinger reference, when, at the end of the piece they all collectively picked up their boxes, opened them, and found they all contained their own shoes, which they put on and walked off stage. Did that symbolise the breaking of their metaphorical chains and their walk to freedom? Again I am uncertain.
Dressed identically all in balck, with their repetitive movements and freezes, use of strobe lighting and haze, it was an intelligently formed piece but I feel I would have been able to have been more objective about it had I been able to hear everything, and would certainly have enjoyed both pieces more had I been able to watch them live.
The one thing I can say for both pieces is that the students were unequivocally focussed and worked excellently together; both pieces showed superb ensemble acting and commitment to the piece. Not only was it a huge learning curve for all involved, it was a very important part of understanding the processes of theatre and small-scale touring; and for me at least, why live theatre is so important!
Reviewer - Matthew Dougall
on - 24/11/20
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