STUDENT THEATRE REVIEW: UnTaPped: The Archive Of Origin - The Contact Theatre, Manchester

The Arden, Manchester's very own theatre school were ensconced at The Contact Theatre for two days with their annual student showcase from the 3rd year graduating students on the Theatre And Performance course [hence the TaP pun in the title]. 

Theatre And Performance {variously called Theatre Performance Practice or Contemporary Performance} is, as the name suggests, both contemporary, and not mainstream. It is becoming more and more popular with young and up-coming theatre practitioners embracing the modern techniques and merging them with their own individual theatrical styles. Styles such as Meta Theatre, Verbatim Theatre, Immersive Theatre, Durational or Installation etc spring to mind and are all studied, and then undoubtedly deconstructed, before the students are given free reign to create their own final performances, open to the public, as their fond farewell to the comforts and security of the university and go forward to forge creative professional paths for themselves in the months (or maybe even years!) to come. One of the sure-fire things I have found as a reviewer of the students on this course over several years, is that you never really know what you are going to get until you get it, you simply have to take a chance and go into the theatre with no preconceived expectations - it will all be new and often quite bizarre - and you will either emerge satisfied and gratified, or even more confused than you were before entering! Oftentimes I have watched plays produced by the students of Arden's TaP course and not understood anything...! However, I am more than happy to relate that I watched 13 individual productions / performances today - yes, 13! - and all were easily understandable, and most, very enjoyable. Perhaps one can ascribe this to the fact that the students themselves in this instance had created their own work; portrayed themselves as they felt most comfortable being portrayed; and written and shown work which excited them; rather than in previous school-based productions following instructions from tutors or outside directors. This can only be seen as a plus, as it marks the all-important transition from student to fully-fledged actor.

And before you gasp in horror... no, I am not going to write much about all 13! (phew!). I am simply going to make passing mention to them, and write a little more about those which affected me the most.

The day started with a fifty minute play from the course's first year students. A nice idea to mark an end with a beginning this way. The piece was called, 'The Creation Of Knew' and very unsubtely set up the premise for the whole theme of the event. 'The Archive Of Origin' being the umbrella title for these two days of performances, all of which somewhere along the line touch upon our origin. Asking questions such as 'where did we come from?', 'what are we made of?', and 'why are we the way that we are? and should we embrace that or change that?'. With this story from the first years we were in the Library of Alexandria (before and after its destruction), and watch a battle between the Muses and the Scribes, which could quite easily be transferred to our own contemporary politics (which I guess was the whole point!). Some very amusing vignettes and nice ideas emerging from this troupe of 23 aspiring actors.

The first solo piece of the day followed; 'Cutting Ties'  by Jessica Nash, in which she explores her own insecurities and hang-ups about being alone by refusing to answer a constantly ringing telephone. Following this a duo, two friends, juxtapose comedy and tragedy nicely with their touching final show together before moving on, in 'Turn Off The TaP Before You Leave'. Moments of self-admission and personal tragic circumstance nicely brought out by using high comedy clowing with skill. 

'***Nic Dwa Razy' came next. Kasia Zwiernik's Polish language piece about being an 'immigrant', taking us through her early life in a small north-eastern Polish town helpfully giving us the English translation of her monologue on a screen - which also showed pictures and videos from her family album. And then suddenly there are no translations, and we are left listening to her speaking Polish, now understanding how immigrants feel entering this country without any knowledge of our language and customs. Following this was another solo piece, this time from Mia Gibbons, 'Artificial Light'. using words and lines from the works of Shakespeare and others, she created her own inner-monologue outlining her sorrows, regrets, and loneliness. The combination of too-loud background music and indisctinct enunciation however made it very difficult to understand and appreciate this piece. 

Fred Boudelaire, the 'Melodist', was on hand all day, offering to change a favourite well-known tune or song into a different genre / style for you. Boudelaire has generally been involved with the technical side of TaP, editing and playing the music for the shows, and so here it seemed only fitting to complete the course with a personal piece of music. We shared a love of classical music and so I am looking forward to hearing Boudelaire's version of Shostakovich's 'Romance' from 'The Gadfly'!

Another piece of installion / interactive theatre which was available throughout the day was, 'A Quick Dial With The Devil', from Kyia KB. Using your mobile, give her a quick call, she is the devil, and will put you in touch with someone who can help you to sell your soul, tell your horoscope, have a jolly good bitch with, or even tell your fortune. But be warned, it will be the improvised conversation from hell!

Katie Connelly's solo piece was next, 'Swings And Roundabouts', which was a piece of contemporary interpretive dance. In a small rehearsal studio space a single row of chairs in a circle, as Connelly contorts herself in the centre. Using pre-recorded monologue and backing tracks the deliberate writhing and movement shows us that no matter what happens, it only happens once. Life is fleeting, and so we should accept the person you are now, since tomorrow you will be a different person. My one comment to make here is that Connelly made it obvious that she had made a mistake in her own choreography. She was a solo artiste performing a unique work, and so no-one would have known if she hadn't have made it obvious.

The next piece was also a solo work, and performed in the same space using the same stage / audience configuration. This was 'Past The Pint Of No Return', by Ella Straub, and was for me, the most centred and powerful of all the performances I witnessed. Quasi-Musical, Straub presented her quotidien routine of working in a city bar to modern pop music! It started out as a humorous and clever romp, which half-way through changed tack and dynamic to become a very real and sincere piece about alcohol dependency. Undoubtedly coming from a very real place, this performance showed great sensitivity and Straub is an enigmatic performer, commanding our attention even when she is motionless.

Back again to the small black box studio theatre for the next presentation; 'Flesh and Bones' by Heather White. Another honest and personal look at her body and how the things that have happened to her (and her body) have shaped the way she is now. Tragic and from the heart, she admits personal 'secrets' never before disclosed, such as suffering from endometriotis, in order to tell us why she is the way she is now, and that we should embrace that. This was her body.. her story. The staging was poor sadly, as she had positioned her bed downstage right in front of the audience's feet, and so the whole scenelet which she performed whilst on the bed was completely obscurred from my view.  A brave piece of personal sharing, which was undoubtedly therapeutic for her, but the strong and powerful ending was more theatrically gratifying. 

'A Fright To Remember' was a theatrical duet by Callum McCourt and Elyse Roche, in which they took conventional clowing skills (which are frightening enough anyway!), and created a non-verbal physical piece about friendship and being scared. The object of their fright being a bee. Short, simple, easy to understand, well presented, with a lovely feel-good ending, it worked really well, even without the somewhat ubiquitous and extraneous vox-pop voice-overs to complete the need to continue the theme of origin.

The penultimate piece in this marathon of peformances was, 'Taking Up Space', and this was a solo work from Megan Fielden. As with the 'Flesh And Bones' piece, this dealt with body issues, but focussing especially on the performer's own anxieties. She has a condition known as Generalised Anxiety Disorder, and so creating and performing in her own one-woman show was an ordeal. I enjoyed the idea of using a computerised voiceover to be her own inner-monologue throughout. Again though, the downstage areas of the stage on both sides were utilised in this piece, and so again I was unable to see anything that happened during those moments. 

The whole evening, and indeed the whole of the two-day event, and the students' performance work on their course, ended with a rather tongue-in-cheek 'Killing Time', as the whole student body of TaP3 paid their last respects to seminal moments on the course, characters they had portrayed, costumes they had worn, and even the performances that they had been involved in. 

There were various other performances too throughout the two days, but sadly timing and scheduling did not permit me to watch them all.

Reviewer - Matthew Dougall
on - 21.5.22