Walking On Eggshells: Arches Live!

There is a consistency of tone across the Arches Live this year that has given the festival a coherent and intimate atmosphere. Many of the works are autobiographical, filled with youthful idealism and reference popular culture. When this works – as in Jess Thorpe’s Chip – they not only promise a safe future for performance but offer perspectives that cannot be found in more traditional drama.

Unfortunately, when they don’t work, the role of the critic becomes difficult. Eggshells, Sweetheart?, which makes its point about the social and personal challenges of motherhood clearly, could do with a stronger structure and more variation in atmosphere. Yet is it fair to make aesthetic judgements on a piece so firmly rooted in the experience of the performer, who goes so far as to use her own breast milk?

And as Portrait explores a teenage rape with sincerity, it feels unkind to mention that it was not performed with a powerful enough voice. To say that this show doesn’t work turns the critic into a brute, reducing everything to a matter of entertainment and taste. Live Art is notorious for its willingness to bring uncomfortable subjects to the audience, and veer towards personal therapy for the artists. Portrait is a challenge, but this does not justify the rather formulaic presentation. By being so intensely private, it avoids making universal claims while presenting a specific event and its consequences. There is a powerful idea at work here in need of a thoughtful directorial direction.

Ultimately, Eggshells is more successful because it seeks to communicate and connects to broader human experience, while Portrait is locked into a personal vision that can only be shared if it is performed with more polish. The personal may be theatrical, as long as the theatrical can connect with the personal experience of the audience and not become solipsistic.

Everything I Do is a Love Letter to Life fortunately avoids being too personal, allowing the critic to be a little more forthright. Pretentious and vague, it concludes with a brief audio-visual display and a positive message that is joyous against an hour of dreariness. The sing-along to 'Total Eclipse of the Heart' feels pointless (is this ironic or serious?) and the various speeches never cohere into a narrative. There is far too much reference to the nature of performance itself and plenty of portentous addressing of the crowd. Despite a lightly humorous introduction and an almost moving finale, this production is stuck in an abstract intellectualism.

Pirate Radio is exactly what it suggests: a broadcast from the depths of the Arches, led by John Cavanagh and featuring old fashion adverts and awkward musical interludes. Cavanagh has an old school night-time radio voice, and lulls the audience. His self-interview is funny, his stories ramble and he unearths forgotten details of broadcasts past. Mild and entertaining, it has the personal tone, without sudden revelations and shocks, and adds up to a relaxing hour of nostalgia for a time not dominated by the visual flash of television.