Tag Archives: Site-specific Theatre

“Oikos” at the Jellyfish Theatre

The Oikos Project sees a new temporary theatre, The Jellyfish, erected in Union Street, Southwark. Exciting enough – but this creature really has to be seen to be believed. Under the auspices of The Architecture Foundation, Berlin-based team Kobberling and Kaltwasser have used only reclaimed and recycled materials. As the pop-up phenomena becomes more commercialised, this project takes a stand – it was built by local volunteers and school children. Just gazing at this surreal, strangely beautiful thing is an unmissable experience, learning about the ideas behind it a humbling one.

oikos-project-credit-Brian-Benson
The Oikos Theatre photographed by Brian Benson

The building itself seems destined to overshadow whatever play it stages. And that’s a shame, since Oikos the play (the first of two productions scheduled) has plenty to offer. Appropriately it concerns climate change. Neil d’Souza convincingly portrays a successful city trader who, having escaped natural disaster as a child in India, now sees his home in Chiswick flooded and his personal life awash with problems. Dido Miles puts in a great performance as his wife, adrift in her new surroundings and claiming their wealth hasn’t made them happy. Their daughter, played by Amy Dawson, also has issues. Spoilt rotten, she seems trapped in an extended adolescence that is suitably irritating.

Director Topher Campbell and writer Simon Wu have problems that are not of their own making. Climate change quite rightly concerns us all but, with similar issues being addressed down the road at the National Theatre, comparisons are inevitable. These are not necessarily to this play’s detriment. Oikos is tightly constructed, with fascinating mystic undertones and the idea that our lives need a new kind of balance is intelligently presented. The problem is one of audience fatigue.

Serious environmental threats cannot be doubted – both play and project succeed in their aim of making us think. Yet, at the risk of sounding trivial, it should be remembered that theatre can also be a celebration. Given the achievement of building this wonderful new space, a testament to creativity in itself, the play’s dark warning seems at odds with the project’s optimism.

Until 18 September 2010

Photo by Robert Workman

Written 31 August 2010 for The London Magazine

“Limehouse Nights” by the Kandinsky Theatre Company

Limehouse once had a thriving Chinese population and, along with this, a lively reputation as an exotic den of vice. From Dickens to Conan Doyle, the area’s opium dens were a gift to writers seeking to create racist stereotypes of immigrants. The Kandinsky Theatre has taken over the sadly decrepit Limehouse Town Hall to allow us our own intoxicatingly intelligent journey back in time.

Make no mistake that we are tourists. Director and writer James Yeatman opens the play, based on a real-life story, with a group much like ourselves – turn-of-the-century Londoners on a tour and looking for escapism. Limehouse has had lots of gentrification since the time of the play – desirable terraces and modern flats surround Hawksmoor’s St Anne’s – but the Town Hall itself has seen better days. Despite clever efforts by designer Amy Cook, it isn’t well suited as an auditorium. The idea of staging the play there is neat, but the production is a success despite, rather than because of, its location.

Following the death by drug overdose of a musical-hall actress, police inspector Thomas Burke heads for the East End to investigate the source of her supply. There follows an entertaining detective story that includes plenty of wry observation about cultural encounters. The whodunit is presented well, with a series of interviews and statements that allow Alex Marx and Sarah Sweeney to show off their talents as various characters.

The politics is less successful. Tom Ferguson does well to show the Inspector’s excited exchange with his new Chinese friends and even better to show a creepy side when his interest in the exotic turns erotic. However, his supervisor MacReady, is understandably confused about his modern approach to community policing. Ed Hancock plays the role too much for laughs. He gets them but it doesn’t sit well with the rest of the play’s more subtle approach.

The pressure to find a solution to the case becomes about providing a story for the sensation-loving press. As interludes of musical theatre mimed by the cast reinforce, this story doesn’t have to be real so much as entertaining –with prejudices never questioned just confirmed.

Lee Chee Kong and his Irish wife Mita are the couple forced to take the blame. They are utterly believable as a devoted pair and the scenes of their romance and intimacy are the play’s highlights. Their exploitation to fit a bigoted narrative is made tragic by wonderful performances from William Mychael Lee and Kerry-Jayne Wilson. These actors alone make it a Limehouse Night to remember.

www.kandinsky-online.com

Until 11 June 2010

Photo by Dan Patrick

Written 1 June 2010 for The London Magazine

“Ditch” at the Old Vic Tunnels

As The London Magazine’s resident theatre mole, your intrepid reviewer went subterranean to visit The Old Vic Tunnels for Beth Steel’s apocalyptic new play Ditch.

Located beneath Waterloo station and approached along a depressing back street, the venue is actually a happy compromise away from the more adventurous site-specific locations that can be something of an ordeal. It still gets cold and it smells a bit but, with comfy seats donated by Banksy and a bar that boasts no fewer than four designers, it is achingly cool and London’s most exciting new theatrical space.

More importantly, the creative team behind Ditch have used the venue well. Installations surround the auditorium. Plant-covered mill wheels are atmospherically lit and a dismembered tree hovers, upside down, over a bright red circle of cloth. It’s great scene setting and appropriate for the dystopian scenario that unfolds.

Although Ditch is set in the countryside and much of the action takes place out of doors, the survivor’s predicament is perfectly reflected by the large design team headed by Takis. Superb lighting and sound by Matt Prentice and Christopher Shutt add to constructing this frightening world. Here, while ‘security’ forces live in isolation with their housekeepers and search out ‘illegals’, there are some captivating moments – the sighting of a stag in the mist or the creation of a sunset that subtly suggests an atomic cloud.

There’s some superb acting as well. Sam Hazeldine plays the foul-mouthed Turner, dedicated to his soldier’s life with edgy brutality. Danny Webb is his commander, Burns, and convinces as a thoughtful, broken man who can remember what civilisation used to be like. Fighting off memories of the past as a strategy to survive is Dearbhla Molloy’s formidable Mrs Peel. This is a wonderful performance, as she looks after the men and herself with humorous, steely determination. Her other charge is the young Megan (Matti Houghton) who gives a touching portrayal full of small rebellions and a quest for love with spirited new recruit James (Gethin Anthony).

But what of the play itself? Steel has set out a standard science-fiction scenario with the odd little tactic of leaving out all the details. We are never told what has happened to the world and given next to no back-story for the characters. Avoiding specifics deprives us of questioning events or degenerating into adolescent paranoia. I suspect the idea is to focus instead on the characters’ reactions and some abstract ideas about the environment. This isn’t a trade off worth paying. Perversely, Steel ignores her own lesson that people can live in the moment and snatch joy in the worst of times to persist in a vision of the future both bleak and vague.

Until 26 June 2010

www.theoldvictheatre.com

Photo by William Knight

Written 21 May 2010 for The London Magazine