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Pleasance Dome – Queen Dome
Hyped up by a rave but let down by poor storytelling. Breathe is a show that doesn’t know what it wants to be.Summary
Rating
Good
SK Shlomo has toured the world for over ten years, even playing Glastonbury. It’s easy to see why Breathe is supported by a dozen influential artistic venues and companies – they are one of the best beatboxers in the world and clearly has a talent for all things aural. In the opening of this show, Shlomo warms up the audience by mixing a new beat from our sounds. We’re really hyped.
Shlomo was born in London to an Iraqi Jewish family and from an early age it is clear they were not like other kids at school. They adopted the moniker ‘Simon’ to pass alongside their boring British friends. Their origin story is familiar, they discover beatboxing to avoid bullying and realise at an early age they are quite good at it. Testament to this is a beatboxing scene set outside London’s Fabric nightclub, an iconic venue where some of the fastest rising stars of the DJ world play, except on this occasion they hear a young Shlomo beatboxing on the street after closing time.
The best elements of this show are, predicably, the beatboxing. In a memorable, early scene, Shlomo recreates the sounds of parties thrown by their aunties through beatboxing and mixing on their looping deck at the back of the stage. It gives a real sense of what it would have been like to have been part of their upbringing and what was going on in their head. The play works best when the beatboxing is integrated into the narrative, forming part of the storytelling. Unfortunately these moments are fleeting. Shlomo is absolutely an engaging performer, but not an actor. They are let down by what is quite a clunky show.
That impromptu performance outside Fabric leads to being picked up for a tour with a DJ but a decade later they crash down with a bang. They are a father struggling with their mental health in another world where nobody understands them. This time it is not school but suburbia. The fathers and neighbours are described as grey and this point is consistently laboured upon until in a final scene where they out themselves as former ravers. This seems to substitute for any character development. There is a good play lurking in here, but it struggles to rise above a dozen threads of narrative and jumbled direction. It could also be a nice, tight 60 minutes but unfortunately insists on having three false endings; a children’s rave; another rave and then a preview of their new album. At the moment it is a show that doesn’t know what it wants to be or where it’s going.
Written by: SK Shlomo
Directed by: Masha Kevinovna
Design by: Cara Evans
Movement direction by: Maria Koripas
Lighting Design by: Alex Fernandes
Music and sound design by: SK Shlomo
SK Shlomo: Breathe: The Play That Becomes a Rave plays at the Pleasance Dome until 28 August. Further information and bookings can be found here.
