Harbouring The Past

Post-modern thought, aside from being a confusing mess of jargon and obscure juxtapositions, has a complex relationship to the past. Distrustful of the past's certainties, it also rejects the idea of originality: this lead to work that often sources material from traditional tales, yet questions their worth as truth.

Limbik Theatre take a classic trope, found all around the world, of teh seal who becomes a woman. Their aesthetic, formed by "physical theatre" is thoroughly contemporary, even if the theme is ancient. From here, they examine impossible desires, through a specific tale of a mother, her fisherman son and the beautigul women he brings home from the sea. the mixture of live music and story-telling is typical of much contemporary work that breaches genre boundaries: at the same time, it deals with a perennial preoccupation.

 

The harbour starts with traditional tales of seals and women: why go
back to folk stories as the foundation of a very modern piece of
theatre?

Folk tales survive because they're good stories. You don't have to look very far to find their contemporary relevance, because they resonate with our own experience;there's always something in them that will strike a chord, regardless of place and time. This selkie myth seems to have a universal appeal. We've found that different age groups take very different things from the story—it provokes strong reactions and heated debate, which is fantastic place to start from in making theatre.

Storytelling is certainly a resurgent form, but how does it fit with
the physicality of Limbik's production?

The language of physical and visual theatre is the medium through which we approach our storytelling. In this show, we try and strike a balance between imagery, movement, and scenes. Having a clear story with strong characters allows us the freedom to explore bold choices with our imagery and physicality. What's important to us is that our theatrical language is in service of our story.

How are you using the stories? Are they a metaphor for something else,
or an example of magical narratives?

The story is it's own metaphor. Which I guess is a way of saying, in answer to your question, both. What makes folk tales like this one particularly rich is that their meaning is fluid and open to interpretation. We were fascinated by the theme of impossible desire that pervades this story of a seal woman who loses her skin. All the characters try in some way to change the course of nature, in order to hold on to those they love. But we arrived at this place through exploring the story, not by parachuting our own metaphor in. We tried to take care, first and foremost, of the journey of our characters, because they hold the emotional heart of the piece. The metaphorical implications grew from there. Our interpretation was already in the story, but we had to uncover it.