Review: The Bride, Camden People’s Theatre

Entering across the performance space to our seats, it feels like the audience are interrupting another world. Still and silent female characters are blended into corners, a pile of white muslin is lit on the floor, and more muslin is draped around the small, circular, tent-like changing room. Before the show begins, we all wait together…

During the penultimate weekend of Camden Fringe, a visit to Camden People’s Theatre is always a great way to support younger artists and theatre makers. The space, where local people can feel represented, platforms new work.

The Bride is produced, directed and co-performed by Yu Ai, who promises a haunting dance piece blending movement, ritual, and cinematic storytelling. Three other performers (Lei Ieok Mang, Shiting Tao, Ziyao Geng) join Ai using precise, intense and committed movement. They effectively fuse Chinese Dunhuang and contemporary dance, alongside stylised physical theatre. The characters are blended and representative, and the visual aesthetic is seemingly of high importance. There is an epic filmic quality, with powerful still images and slow movements that are particularly impressive.

Although skillfully danced, the first two thirds of the piece become episodic, with a series of solos and duets. Whilst well choreographed, the emotion is pretty much on the same level throughout, making it difficult to connect with the characters and their grief. The frequent use of flashbacks makes the storytelling unclear, and it is hard to distinguish between roles, especially at the beginning.

However, there are some lovely silk-making and weaving rituals which create stunning visuals. A key example of this is when the Mother is washed up on the shore, tangled with woven materials, and the back projection, lighting and seascape all come together to achieve a beautiful moment of timeless storytelling.

Yiling Liu does a good job of lighting this intimate space to create an atmospheric ancestral home on Silk Island, inhabited by spirits and moving landscapes. Complemented by animated images (Lijuan Kang) of seas and tempests, the visuals add to the piece’s immersive nature. Furthermore, Ziyao Geng and Lu Wang’s white fabric costumes are an ideal canvas for colour mapping. Later, the dancers wear traditional masks and headdresses, providing visual spectacle and cementing the story’s cultural context.

Less successful are the vocals and slow monosyllabic delivery of text. It doesn’t add to the lyrical quality and is difficult to catch amidst the loud soundscape. Words like ‘spirit’ or ‘mother’, and phrases like ‘daughters must not pay for the mother’s sin’ waft around the space with a lack of strength, and may be missed by the audience.This doesn’t add to the piece and diminishes the finely crafted movement. Perhaps either a printed scene by scene synopsis or projected subtitles could provide a solution.

A further draft investigating the story’s flow and the overall rhythm of the piece, with a clearer sharing of narrative, would elevate the production. This would give clarity and open a deeper understanding of intention, taking the show beyond a spectacle to be admired. That being said, this company should feel pleased with their work.They create many moments of powerful beauty, using deep symbolic cultural references to interrogate female identity woven into Chinese silk traditions and ritual.

Directed and produced by: Yu Ai

Visual and Costume Artists: Ziyao Geng, Lu Wang

Composers: Thomas Calcutt, Yu-Hui Zong

Singer/Organist: Yu-Hui Zong

Moving Image Artist: Lijuan Kang

Lighting Designer: Yiling Liu

The Bride has completed its run at the Camden People’s Theatre as part of the Camden Fringe Festival.