“Lionboy”

at Warwick Arts Centre, Tuesday 18th June 2013

One of the most exciting moments in last night’s performance of Complicite’s adaptation of Zizou Corder’s Lionboy came when a wooden stool onto which protagonist Charlie Ashanti was being shoved gave way as he was forced onto it. For a moment, everything went silent following an “Ooh” from various audience members. Flickers of panic glimmered in the eyes of the eight-strong ensemble. Then, thankfully, someone piped up with “Sit on the floor!”, pushed Ashanti to the ground and took the stool off stage, allowing the performance to resume as usual. If only the rest of the production had this much drama.

The Lionboy trilogy was written between 2003 and 2006 under the pen name of Zizou Corder, in fact the mother-daughter duo of Louisa Young and Isabel Adomakoh Young,

“Icarus: A Story of Flight”

at C Eca, Wednesday 15th August 2012

*Written for http://www.StageWon.co.uk. Published here: http://stagewon.co.uk/news/view/festival-icarus-a-story-of-flight/*

I’ve been thinking a lot about the use of circus in theatre recently. I’m a firm believer in total theatre, but it can only be achieved when the various aspects are fully incorporated. The use of circus skills, for example, has to support the story and vice versa. This is certainly the case with Square Peg’s Rime, which uses the rhythms of its source material to inform its choreography. In Backhand Theatre’s Icarus: a Story of Flight this isn’t the case, as it feels like impressive acrobatics are used simply to back up a thin storyline and poor performances.

In this story, Icarus has fallen to earth and finds another human, Guy, with whom he attempts to find a fallen star. It’s overly simplified and the text condescends its audience, being full of cliché and slow. The story of Icarus should be easy to slot acrobatics into, but Backhand fail to make these set pieces into much more than interesting diversions; they go a way to visualising a story, but don’t add anything on their own but visual effect. Spectacle is all well and good, but it must be justified.

Apparently, the company recruits actors and then trains them in circus skills, which is surprising considering the performances are generally wooden and unbelievable. Lewis Davidson and Gavin Maxwell impress with their aerial skills, but when on the ground fail to make an impression. Granted, the script’s language is hard to speak well, but more could be made of the storytelling element.

The circus skills alone manage to captivate and are at least understandable in the story, but they are never truly melded into the play, making them feel a little too showy. Some weak puppetry and repetitive music could also be more thought through, but again do well to support the story. Ultimately, Icarus contains within it many interesting ideas, but throws them at an audience without much cohesion by actors who aren’t quite up-to-scratch.

“It’s Like He’s Knocking”

created and performed by Leo Kay

at Warwick Arts Centre, Tuesday 24th May 2011

Immersive theatre is on the up all over the theatre world, no less than at Warwick Arts Centre, where the current season is breaking the boundaries between audience and performer. We are being asked to interact with performers like never before, bringing us closer to the story and delving deep into the human psyche. In It’s Like He’s Knocking, Leo Kay proves there are two ways of engaging an audience: look them in the eye, and get them sozzled.

We are led through the bowels of the Arts Centre, winding up in a smokey dressing room, adorned to resemble a bedsit. Kay sits in a chair, playing an accordion, before proceeding to tell us the story of his past, present and future. Particular emphasis is placed on his father and grandfather, both of whom had extraordinary lives with tragic endings, and Kay uses this to hang on his own reservations, dreams and ambitions. It’s transfixing.

But this is more than just a monologue. It’s Like He’s Knocking is theatre, in every sense of the word. Interspersed among Kay’s speech are moments of sheer spectacle, which is remarkable considering the size of the space. One moment sees a pitch black room being lit by a tiny window to the outside world, illuminating Kay’s face to the tune of man-made sea sounds. In another we watch Kay and his musician, Mestre Carlao, stare each other in the face intently while playing the most extraordinary ritualistic music on accordion and tambourine respectively. In the finale, Kay downs multiple vodka shots while stumbling around the room, as lights flash and music blasts. It’s the sort of spectacle which wouldn’t seem out of place in the Olivier.

Towards the beginning of the piece, we are asked to drink a toast of vodka, immediately drawing us in. Later, we write down memories of our own childhood and partake in a small wager. As the piece continues, it slowly becomes clear why these are relevent. It’s a beautifully structured piece of writing; sometimes, we are listening to facts about Kay’s ancestors, and the next about how the performance gestated. Both are interlinked, each utterly dependent on the other.

Kay is mesmerising. It’s a touchingly honest performance, if indeed you can call it a performance at all. It’s so clearly from the heart that it feels wrong to call it something normally associated with pretence and externalisation. He takes us on a journey, keeping us hooked from the moment we walk in. When he looks you in the eye, he’s talking to no one but you. It’s supported beautifully by Carlao’s ethereal soundscaping, created using random objects and a looping machine.

The small-scale spectacle of this performance is not hindered by the intimacy of the venue, nor vice versa. At its heart, It’s Like He’s Knocking is a story about how a man arrived where we are sitting. Kay’s script (can you call it that?) is brutally honest and charmingly poetic, and he pulls at strings in our own hearts which we were perhaps not aware of. Without wanting to sound like I’m hyperbolising, I haven’t left a performance feeling so emotionally drained since Jerusalem. But maybe that’s the vodka talking.

http://vimeo.com/8860605

“The Red Shoes” by Kneehigh

at Warwick Arts Centre, Wednesday 27th October 2010

“Can any of us ever escape our obsessions?” Once we have nurtured a love of something, it is hard letting go when needs must. Letting those around us dictate to us which things we are obsessed about is never a good choice. It would be more than difficult to escape an obsession with Kneehigh Theatre, who have, with this revived production of The Red Shoes, proved once again that they are a company worth getting excited about.

Based on Hans Christian Andersen’s classic fairy tale, we are told the story through by Lady Lydia, who has at her disposal four story-tellers, who show to us how a young girl’s strong attachment with a shiny pair of red shoes leads to disastrous consequences. She is condemned by a priest, undergoes a horrible ordeal with a butcher and is chased by an angel. We all need something which fixates us.

Kneehigh are masters of storytelling, and Emma Rice’s direction shows her mastery of the art. Simple images twinned with effective use of narration make for an exhilarating journey as we follow the protagonist’s dilemma. Much of the entertainment derives from watching the narrator, Lady Lydia, choose how best to direct her storytellers to portray her story. They fight for pole position and there is just as much drama here as in the main narrative.

Once again, Kneehigh are ingenious with their design, as Bill Mitchell proves. Sliding doors hide certain atrocities from view and simple suitcases double as wardrobes and chairs. Costume is simple, defining the characters without going over the top, and the very fact that a donut-shaped piece of cloth can be turned into five different hats deserves commendation in itself. Malcolm Rippeth’s lighting intensifies the simple, scaffold set and Stu Barker’s energetic music is extraordinarily powerful.

The ensemble cast stick to the choreography with ease without making the performance seem mechanical or over-rehearsed. Giles King as Lady Lydia is domineering and confident, and Patrycja Kujawska as the young girl always has a look of absence about her, never quite seeming to be involved in the play, thus removing her from the insane world in which she lives. All the performers seem bemused when in their neutral role of story-tellers, but transform completely in their respective roles.

At times, more could be made of the magic and ethereal nature of the original story, for the construction of the piece would lend itself beautifully to more other-worldly qualities. Generally, however, this visceral and intuitive production is a masterpiece of story-telling, showing once again that there is rarely anything more satisfying than a good story well told.