Skip to main content

The War

King's Theatre, Edinburgh
Five stars
The crackle of a wind-up gramophone at the opening of this epic
evocation of war's mighty blast can only hint at what follows over the
next two and a half hours in this world premiere of Vladimir Pankov's
production for his tellingly named SounDrama Studio. In Paris, 1913, a
group of poets, painters and free-thinking aesthetes are gathered for
Christmas. With storm clouds already gathering, some see the impending
conflict as a a disaster, some as a necessary cleansing, others as an
inspirational romance. It is English painter George, however, who is
killed on the frontline, causing his poet friend Vladimir's intense
mourning. In order to heal, a radical psychiatrist has George's friends
and family role-play Homer's Iliad in order to get to the root of their
own pain.

While all this sounds ennui-laden enough, it is in the telling that
makes Pankov's co-production with Chekhov International Theatre
Festival, based on Richard Aldington's Death of A Hero and Nikolai
Gumilyov's Notes of A Cavalry Officer, so explosive. As George's
soul-sapping decline is unravelled over seventeen scenes, or
'rhapsodies' as they're announced onstage, Pankov's cast of nineteen
navigate their way through a maelstrom of discordant modernist
chorales, strident brass band marches and ancient East European keening
as chandeliers swing, performers are hoisted into the air as they play
their instruments and an entire regiment of great-coats crash down from
above.

Sergei Zemlyansky and Yekaterina Kislova's choreography, Artyom Kim and
Sergey Rodyukov's live score and Maxim Obrezkov's design help make for
a thrillingly urgent theatrical whirlwind that demonstrates exactly how
artistic ideals can be destroyed by war's ugly reality, whatever the
cause.

The Herald, August 11th 2014


ends
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Honourable K.W. Harman: Ltd Ink Corporation

31 Bath Road, Leith Docks, March 17th-20th

In a monumental shipping container down by Leith Docks, a Sex Pistols tribute band is playing Anarchy in the U.K.. on a stage set up in the middle of the room. Either side, various constructions have been built in such a way so viewers can window shop as they promenade from one end of the room to the next, with the holy grail of a bar at either end.

Inbetween, there’s a confession booth and a mock-up of a private detective’s office with assorted documentation of real-life surveillance pinned to the walls. Two people seem to be having a conversation in public as if they're on a chat show. An assault course of smashed windows are perched on the floor like collateral damage of post-chucking out time target practice. A display of distinctively lettered signs originally created by a homeless man in search of a bed for the night are clumped together on placards that seem to be marking out territory or else finding comfort in being together. Opp…
Post a Comment
Read more

Scot:Lands 2017

Edinburgh's Hogmanay
Four stars

A sense of place is everything in Scot:Lands. Half the experience of Edinburgh's Hogmanay's now annual tour of the country's diverse array of cultures seen over nine bespoke stages in one global village is the physical journey itself. Scot:Lands too is about how that sense of place interacts with the people who are inspired inspired by that place.

So it was in Nether:Land, where you could see the day in at the Scottish Storytelling Centre with a mixed bag of traditional storytellers and contemporary performance poets such as Jenny Lindsay. The queues beside the Centre's cafe were further enlivened by the gentlest of ceilidhs was ushered in by Mairi Campbell and her band.

For Wig:Land, the grandiloquence of the little seen Signet Library in Parliament Square was transformed into a mini version of the Wigtown Book Festival. While upstairs provided a pop-up performance space where writers including Jessica Fox and Debi Gliori read eithe…
Post a Comment
Read more

Nomanslanding

Tramway, Glasgow until July 2nd
Four stars

In the dead of night, the audience are split in two and led under-cover into lamp-lit tented structures. Inside, what look like peasant women on the run lead us down a ramp and into a large circular pod. It feels part cathedral, part space-ship, and to come blinking into the light of such a fantastical structure after stumbling in the dark disorientates and overwhelms. Sat around the pod as if awaiting prayers to begin, we watch as performers Nerea Bello and Judith Williams incant mournfully on either side of the room. Their keening chorales embark on a voyage of their own, twisting around each other by way of the international language of singing. As if in sympathy, the walls wail and whisper, before starting to move as those on either side of the pod are left stranded, a gulf between them.

This international co-commission between Glasgow Life and the Merchant City Festival, Sydney Harbour Foreshaw Authority in Australia and Urbane Kienste …
Post a Comment
Read more