Tramway, Glasgow
4 stars
Take one wrong turn, make one bad judgement call, and everything can change for the worst forever after. So it goes with the three couples in this exquisitely realised reimagining of Takeshi Kitano’s film of the same name, which takes a trio of light as gossamer narratives about love, loss and what becomes of the broken-hearted, and breathes the tenderest of theatrical life into it. A damaged pair of lovers walk the earth in search of the purity they lost, joined forever by an umbilical red thread. A gangster returns to the bench where the woman he left years earlier still brings his lunch every day. An obsessed pop fan finally gets to meet his ailing idol.
This all sounds simple enough, but in the telling, for this collaboration between Hush Productions, the National Theatre of Scotland Workshop and Tramway, director Carrie Cracknell has stripped each story to their bare bones enough to leave acres of space for them to come alive in. The first story is almost wordless, with the couple’s tragedy expressed largely through the unspoken elegance of Ben Duke’s choreography in a duet with Laura Wheatley. Even in the other two strands, Jenny Worton’s text is minimal.
The show’s emotional pulse, though, comes through its live contemporary chamber pop score, written and played by Glasgow-based band Zoey Van Goey in an inspired pairing with composer David Paul Jones. The band’s singer Kim Moore also plays the indie chick turned manufactured pop moppet who turns her back on fame. Throughout the play’s seventy minutes, what emerges is a bittersweet elegy of hope and heartbreak that’s as understated and intimate as the stories themselves in an act of love to cherish.
The Herald, February 2nd 2009
ends
4 stars
Take one wrong turn, make one bad judgement call, and everything can change for the worst forever after. So it goes with the three couples in this exquisitely realised reimagining of Takeshi Kitano’s film of the same name, which takes a trio of light as gossamer narratives about love, loss and what becomes of the broken-hearted, and breathes the tenderest of theatrical life into it. A damaged pair of lovers walk the earth in search of the purity they lost, joined forever by an umbilical red thread. A gangster returns to the bench where the woman he left years earlier still brings his lunch every day. An obsessed pop fan finally gets to meet his ailing idol.
This all sounds simple enough, but in the telling, for this collaboration between Hush Productions, the National Theatre of Scotland Workshop and Tramway, director Carrie Cracknell has stripped each story to their bare bones enough to leave acres of space for them to come alive in. The first story is almost wordless, with the couple’s tragedy expressed largely through the unspoken elegance of Ben Duke’s choreography in a duet with Laura Wheatley. Even in the other two strands, Jenny Worton’s text is minimal.
The show’s emotional pulse, though, comes through its live contemporary chamber pop score, written and played by Glasgow-based band Zoey Van Goey in an inspired pairing with composer David Paul Jones. The band’s singer Kim Moore also plays the indie chick turned manufactured pop moppet who turns her back on fame. Throughout the play’s seventy minutes, what emerges is a bittersweet elegy of hope and heartbreak that’s as understated and intimate as the stories themselves in an act of love to cherish.
The Herald, February 2nd 2009
ends
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