Traverse Cubed3 (DESIGNER NOTE: '3' in superscript please)
Eerie, comic, challenging
| 12 Dec 2006
Distracted (SSS) by Morna Pearson is an impressively pointed script, an inter-generational character exploration set on a caravan park. The text suffers from a common difficulty in dramatic narrative, though: the awkward introduction of key events from the past, outside the audience's frame of reference. Genuine dramatic developments are best for this; flashbacks can work; flat recollections by characters, as here, are too common and tell us little.
Another strong, flawed piece is David Priestley's White Point (SSS), in which banality is stretched beyond breaking point to present affecting characters. The piece's principal achievement is in the way dialogue that is not so much 'everyday small-talk' as 'everyday small-talk of the TV soap variety,' is revealed through lasting subtleties to be a useful insight into the way we talk and then think.
The excellent cast for these two plays, presented as part of the Tilt triptych, was the same for each production (as were the stage crew, including as director the increasingly impressive Lorne Campbell). This unusual approach to commissioning was highlighted by the most successful staging of the Cubed festival, Remix, as performed this evening by Dan Williams (SSSS). This ambitious project saw sound and lighting 'mixes' of the three Tilt plays performed and improvised live. It was an eerie, comic, challenging composition that reflected impressively back on the original scripts (which ended up being cut and pasted into new, agglomerated shapes), and the talent of the actors involved.
It is surprising, and disheartening, what is classed as 'experimental' in theatre these days. Highway Diner, the accomplished company who have work-shopped and scripted 15 Minutes (SSS), do make good use of physical theatre elements, as well as some reality-questioning tropes, but this is hardly ground-breaking stuff (as many would have you believe). A plastic surgery tale about a girl turned into Marilyn Monroe, 15 Minutes is nevertheless an entertaining production by a troupe who continue to have much to offer. [RJ Thomson]
Another strong, flawed piece is David Priestley's White Point (SSS), in which banality is stretched beyond breaking point to present affecting characters. The piece's principal achievement is in the way dialogue that is not so much 'everyday small-talk' as 'everyday small-talk of the TV soap variety,' is revealed through lasting subtleties to be a useful insight into the way we talk and then think.
The excellent cast for these two plays, presented as part of the Tilt triptych, was the same for each production (as were the stage crew, including as director the increasingly impressive Lorne Campbell). This unusual approach to commissioning was highlighted by the most successful staging of the Cubed festival, Remix, as performed this evening by Dan Williams (SSSS). This ambitious project saw sound and lighting 'mixes' of the three Tilt plays performed and improvised live. It was an eerie, comic, challenging composition that reflected impressively back on the original scripts (which ended up being cut and pasted into new, agglomerated shapes), and the talent of the actors involved.
It is surprising, and disheartening, what is classed as 'experimental' in theatre these days. Highway Diner, the accomplished company who have work-shopped and scripted 15 Minutes (SSS), do make good use of physical theatre elements, as well as some reality-questioning tropes, but this is hardly ground-breaking stuff (as many would have you believe). A plastic surgery tale about a girl turned into Marilyn Monroe, 15 Minutes is nevertheless an entertaining production by a troupe who continue to have much to offer. [RJ Thomson]
Run finished.
http://www.traverse.co.uk