Review: UPROOTED, The New Diorama

UPROOTED is an environmental, feminist, physical, visual, aural and importantly causal piece of theatre. Just this sentence is going to put a lot of people off – possibly even more as the play begins, and that’s a shame. But more on that later.

Ephemeral Ensemble set out to challenge their audience. It is traumatic to watch as they highlight the rape and pillage of indigenous lands and (predominantly female) bodies. Arguably, it should be so, and the portrayal is commensurate with the horrific reality. To provide an antidote, if not a solution, they do also try to reconnect the audience to a need for balance between human communities and nature while viscerally reminding them of the damage done by colonial and corporate interests. It’s powerful theatre at times and often creatively realised, if somewhat pedagogic in recounting (what should be at least) a familiar general sense of an awful cultural history of annihilation and consumption.

This could be construed as unoriginal. But much like, say, Extinction Rebellion for instance, perhaps we need this abrupt interruption of our daily striving for convenience (or a ‘nice time’ at the theatre), to remind us how easy we’ve got things and why they became so easy: even in this case what makes these luxuries ‘ours’ in the first place – that they were stolen by European settlers. People aren’t going to like being told, and it may even drive some further away, but I imagine this production would argue that we at least have to try, to protest, raise awareness and break that complacent cycle. It’s the question often provoked by protest: what does this achieve, and how do you convey the message? Pacify and placate or react and upset: it’s going to put the backs up of those who don’t care in the first place and will tell those already onboard what they already know. It doesn’t mean it isn’t worth doing.

As for the production itself and its realisation, it is slightly patchy in execution. You can see the cast moving in the background to set wind machines, or changing the modes of the lights (design by Josephine Tremelling) for example. This has an endearing DIY effect that potentially fits the content, but some sections are visually stunning (the use of a small light box house, plastic sheeting for rivers, wreaths of smoke to evoke the aftermath of a fire, not to mention the physical, largely non-verbal movement). It also often sounds incredible (sound by Alex Paton), with beating drums, soaring electric guitars and bass that shook the seats, so the fact that it is possible to see many of the seams sometimes and not at others is a little confusing conceptually. New Diorama is a lovely space, but perhaps another that is a little more dynamic could settle this design one way or the other.

While UPROOTED is not perfect as it can be didactic or shoestring on occasion, the ambition to achieve so much in a small space with just lights, their rigs, lots of smoke, a large Biffa-like bin, and relatively few props – coupled with the hugely laudable ecological ethos – make it in large part remarkable, and the small niggles can be forgiven.

Director – Ramon Ayres
Lighting Design – Josephine Tremelling
Music & Sound Composition – Alex Paton
Performers – Alex Paton, Eyglo Belafonte, Josephine Tremelling, Louise Wilcox & Vanessa Guevara Flores
Commissioned by New Diorama in a co-production with Ephemeral Ensemble. 

Uprooted plays at The New Diorama until Saturday 25 October