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Summerhall – Cairns Lecture Theatre
A visually evocative but disjointed dreamscape provides a Hitchcockian background to a relationship.Summary
Rating
Good
There are some enticing elements in this physical piece presented at Summerhall by From Start to Finnish in association with Agit-Cirk. Billed as “a love story with a Hitchcockian glint in its eye”, it’s quite exciting to see how they translate the master of suspense’s visually striking settings onto a live stage.
A thrilling combination of ballet and juggling promises to portray the relationship between a man and a woman. However, as the two disciplines never entirely merge (with the performers specialising in one or the other), we wonder if this is a suggestion that they don’t quite belong together. Their love is controlling, imposed and, when represented by a ribbon coming out of the male’s chest, used as a lead or a gag. Towering shadows loom over either character, reducing the other to a victim of the unbalanced power play.
The set is flooded with bleak lighting and haze. Black and white costumes (a reference to Vertigo) match the wavy images projected on the gauze that separates the front from the back of the stage. On a few occasions, this gets laboriously moved back and forth, bogging down the narrative.
On the day I attend there is relaxed performance, meaning that some features have been pared down, like the volume of the music and the way performers approach the audience. The house lights are kept dimly on and the strobe effect used in one particular scene scrapped altogether.
Considering that Hitchcock is credited as the father of suspense in cinematography, had I had a choice, I’d have picked a different day, but it’s interesting to see the adjustments that have been introduced.
Both the ballet and the juggling are a bit hesitant, crammed in or just not as sleek as the artists’ brilliant curriculum would suggest. Perhaps the adjustments introduced for this particular performance might be a distraction, as neither of them look comfortable. Evocative visuals struggle to build an atmosphere, regularly broken by cumbersome transitions and equipment being moved around. Nevertheless, one can see what the theatre-makers are trying to do, which is innovative, highly artistic and definitely worth revisiting. Despite this lukewarm performance that never really flows, I am confident that some minor changes could elevate it to the nightmarish dreamscape they’re aiming to create.
Created by: Emma Lister and Sakari Männistö
Visual Art by: Angela Annesley
Produced by: From Start to Finnish in association with Agit-Cirk
