Achnabreck, By Lochgilphead, Argyll
3 stars
NVA don’t do things by halves. Angus Farquhar’s latest environmental escapade takes full advantage of the resources offered in this co-production with the National Theatre Of Scotland to tap into a contemporary aesthetic currency concerned with how primal, metaphysical forces affect the every-day beyond the constraints of the modern world.
Set among the West Highlands natural epic sweep, Farquhar and his crack squad of producers, curators, designers, directors and performers have reached out cross country to present a series of 16 manufactured installations, which you’d need at least two, more likely three days to experience. These take already mysterious structures – a broken down cottage, huge standing stones with mysterious markings – and embellish their natural ambience with a mixtures of constructions designed and built by Simon Costin and James Johnson from natural resources, alongside initially disarming sound-works by Lee Paterson and Toshiya Tsunoda.
All this is breathtakingly ambitious enough, formalising as it does an umbilical lineage of environmental-based art, from Joseph Beuys through to Ian Hamilton Finlay and Andy Goldsworthy. The soundscapes too, which make the landscape rumble, hum and throb so effectively, are more sophisticated developments of work pioneered by sonic explorers David Toop and Max Eastley in the 1970s. Given both sets of ancestors, it’s a fascinating backs-to-the-land attempt to get in touch with energy forces beyond our ken, even if this is achieved by a somewhat contrary appliance of science.
If the effect at times reminds one of the mystical qualities imbued in some black-and-white, BBC Radiophonic Workshop soundtracked piece of mystical, earth’s-core science fiction, it sets the tone perfectly for Half Life the play. Performed late-night in a natural outdoors arena, physical theatre based director Mark Murphy and novelist Thomas Legendre tell a tale that fuses ancient and modern, as an archaeologist and his wife attempt to find some common ground following the loss of their daughter to the elements.
Part domestic tragedy concerning how loss can affect an already barren relationship, part elemental excavation of how the rocks that mark a landscape can absorb psychic waves over centuries to swallow life whole, it’s a visually thrilling hour in the dark.
Set on Costin and Johnson’s astonishing sun-dial-shaped construction, and soundtracked by Rhodri and Angharad Davies’ equally pure, at times frenetic score, bodies walk upside-down in the underworld while the main cast of three scratch around in their emotional dirt in a series of thundering set-pieces. Beyond this, a fractured, oblique and at times portentous text looks in dire need of some major dramaturgical support. Because dressing clunky, quasi-philosophical exchanges up as dialogue only makes it sound even more like psychic hokum.
While essentially a small play with big ideas scaled up way beyond its means, there are nevertheless at least two brilliant moments in Half Life. These, and the accompanying daytime journeys, breathe fresh life into a terrain most people are barely aware of. Sometimes, though, it might have been better to let the land speak for itself.
The Herald, September 6th 2007
ends
3 stars
NVA don’t do things by halves. Angus Farquhar’s latest environmental escapade takes full advantage of the resources offered in this co-production with the National Theatre Of Scotland to tap into a contemporary aesthetic currency concerned with how primal, metaphysical forces affect the every-day beyond the constraints of the modern world.
Set among the West Highlands natural epic sweep, Farquhar and his crack squad of producers, curators, designers, directors and performers have reached out cross country to present a series of 16 manufactured installations, which you’d need at least two, more likely three days to experience. These take already mysterious structures – a broken down cottage, huge standing stones with mysterious markings – and embellish their natural ambience with a mixtures of constructions designed and built by Simon Costin and James Johnson from natural resources, alongside initially disarming sound-works by Lee Paterson and Toshiya Tsunoda.
All this is breathtakingly ambitious enough, formalising as it does an umbilical lineage of environmental-based art, from Joseph Beuys through to Ian Hamilton Finlay and Andy Goldsworthy. The soundscapes too, which make the landscape rumble, hum and throb so effectively, are more sophisticated developments of work pioneered by sonic explorers David Toop and Max Eastley in the 1970s. Given both sets of ancestors, it’s a fascinating backs-to-the-land attempt to get in touch with energy forces beyond our ken, even if this is achieved by a somewhat contrary appliance of science.
If the effect at times reminds one of the mystical qualities imbued in some black-and-white, BBC Radiophonic Workshop soundtracked piece of mystical, earth’s-core science fiction, it sets the tone perfectly for Half Life the play. Performed late-night in a natural outdoors arena, physical theatre based director Mark Murphy and novelist Thomas Legendre tell a tale that fuses ancient and modern, as an archaeologist and his wife attempt to find some common ground following the loss of their daughter to the elements.
Part domestic tragedy concerning how loss can affect an already barren relationship, part elemental excavation of how the rocks that mark a landscape can absorb psychic waves over centuries to swallow life whole, it’s a visually thrilling hour in the dark.
Set on Costin and Johnson’s astonishing sun-dial-shaped construction, and soundtracked by Rhodri and Angharad Davies’ equally pure, at times frenetic score, bodies walk upside-down in the underworld while the main cast of three scratch around in their emotional dirt in a series of thundering set-pieces. Beyond this, a fractured, oblique and at times portentous text looks in dire need of some major dramaturgical support. Because dressing clunky, quasi-philosophical exchanges up as dialogue only makes it sound even more like psychic hokum.
While essentially a small play with big ideas scaled up way beyond its means, there are nevertheless at least two brilliant moments in Half Life. These, and the accompanying daytime journeys, breathe fresh life into a terrain most people are barely aware of. Sometimes, though, it might have been better to let the land speak for itself.
The Herald, September 6th 2007
ends
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