Where We Meet
London is currently exploding with experimental theatre, much of it (The Manikins, Bound, Origins) taking ideas from city stalwart Punchdrunk and pushing them in new directions. Where We Meet, currently making its way around various fringe festivals, is one of the more technologically interesting of the new crop.
In a dark room, three dancers are spaced apart, lit with spotlights. Audience members, armed with headphones fitted with location-tracking beacons, are free to roam the space. As they move, monologues appear to emanate from each dancer, growing louder as spectators approach. A visual component is the cherry on top, with the performers’ spotlights contracting as viewers draw near—a clever, if not entirely successful, attempt to beckon the audience closer.
The audio component is a total triumph. The seamless integration of head-tracking technology with the audio creates a convincingly three-dimensional soundscape, anchoring each narrative firmly to its corresponding dancer. It works creatively, too. Listening to the dancers’ stories offers both depth and a welcome narrative lifeline to the interpretative dance. And while the text isn’t particularly profound, the exploration of insecurities does, at times, strike a nerve.
Equally clever is the show’s adaptability. Performers can adjust the audio in real-time, initiating sequences that involve audience interaction. Though not quite seamless, it’s a nice way of letting performers play with the crowd they’ve got — and adds much welcome variety for a show that loops even within a short 35 minute runtime.
Less successful is the lighting component. The lighting design, intended to “[free] people from being self-conscious”, does the opposite. By creating a boundary that contracts as soon as your foot touches it, you constantly feel like you’re violating the performers’ space. Rather than drawing you in, the design encourages you to keep your distance — far from the desired effect.
But the biggest problem is the show’s small scope. The technology cries out for a larger, more labyrinthine venue and more performers, a setting which would let you truly explore and craft your own show. In a smaller context, that doesn’t work so well. Having all performers visible at all times induces a constant sense of missed opportunities, and there isn’t quite enough variety to keep audiences engaged: despite the short run-time, I still saw scenes repeat. Yet despite these shortcomings, Where We Meet represents an exciting step forward: an impressive technological effort that has huge potential.
Bound
It is hard to make a show about grief that you leave desperately wanting to rewatch. Yet Bound achieves it. This Punchdrunkian production — a promenade physical-theatre piece — is a startlingly accomplished production from Amber Jarman-Crainey and collaborators; all the more so for it being (as far as I can tell) her first large-scale production.
Conceived in the aftermath of Jarman-Crainey’s brother’s death, Bound features nine performers roaming the crumbling rooms of the South Bank’s Bargehouse. Each embodies a distinct response to grief: some drink, some wail, some put on a brave face and push through. While moments of interaction punctuate the performance, the characters are largely isolated they’re by themselves, offering audiences the freedom to pursue individual narratives.
The performances are, without fail, astounding — and heartbreaking. Vinicius Salles‘ homeless alcoholic dances with an exceptional blend of despair, longing, and hope, all heightened by occasional, deeply profound, moments of audience interaction. Dominic Coffey, meanwhile, visualises the horror of intrusive thoughts with violent, intense physicality, throwing himself against walls and clawing at his own head in a performance that’s exhausting to watch, let alone perform. And Rosalia Panepinto’s blood-curdling screams are genuinely difficult to hear — yet, reverberating around the building, impossible to escape.
As in all the best immersive shows, that building becomes a character all of its own. Though the set design is minimal — and a bit too reliant on draped plastic sheets for my liking — it can afford to be in a building with such inherent atmosphere. Teetering on the edge of derelict, the Bargehouse has a haunted feeling to it, its bare, crumbling walls evoking grief all on their own.
Bound is not perfect. It unsurprisingly lacks the polish of its more established peers; lighting and music in particular could do with some work. But it’s nevertheless immensely powerful. Bound’s triumph is that it doesn’t just show you grief: it envelops you in it, forces you to feel it. It catapults you back into your darkest times, making you to sit with something we all too often push down. While that’s hardly comfortable — and may prove too much for some — there is something cathartic to it. You leave feeling less alone, armed with the knowledge that these experiences, terrible though they are, are shared.
Salt The Threshold
The Manikins, arguably the hottest show of the year, came out of last year’s Advanced Theatre Practice course at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. The work of this year’s cohort, therefore, seemed worth investigating — particularly that of Manikins’ actor Amber Williams.
Salt the Threshold, created and performed by Williams and Haeyoung Yun, is a fascinating, multi-layered piece that defies easy categorisation. What begins as a humdrum dramedy soon veers into horror, then meta-theatre, then a puppet show. Cramming that much into a 105-minute runtime would typically make for a car crash, even in experienced playwrights’ hands. Yet despite occasional pacing issues, Williams and Yun somehow craft a coherent, compelling narrative.
There’s a thematic core to the play — though it reveals itself slowly — and all the experimentalism carefully works in service of it. Rather than throwing a grab-bag of ideas at you, the pair instead choose to explore a single concept through multiple lenses, to pretty masterful effect. What could have been a chaotic assemblage, then, is instead a nuanced exploration of what it means to be trapped in a failing relationship.
It helps that both Williams and Yun are fantastic performers. Williams commands the stage, seamlessly transitioning between levity and intensity as the script demands. That makes for a fabulous pairing with Yun, a wonderful physical performer who is silent for much of the play yet speaks volumes.
Combined with very clever, and thematically relevant, set design, you’re left with a piece that could, and should, grace a professional stage. Since COVID, those professional venues have too often been full of banal, safe work. Salt the Threshold is an exciting reminder that that doesn’t have to be the case; that there are plenty of exciting theatre-makers in the city with original, fresh ideas — and they deserve to be seen.
Essayant 