Skip to main content

The Last Pearl

Tron Theatre, Glasgow

Five stars

 

The world is drowning in this exquisite dive into troubled waters by Ireland’s Blue Raincoat Theatre Company, touring the fourth of a series of devised shows after premiering in Sligo in 2022. It’s there in the stormy seas conjured up by the five people on stage who use shadow puppets, model houses and all manner of impressionistic techniques to make their point without having to hector or harangue. The company’s slow burning artistry does the talking in a way that transcends words. 

 

Director Niall Henry’s exquisitely realised construction focuses on a pearl diver and her struggles to survive with her daughter in the face of a seismic typhoon. With houses blown away and boats wrecked by the waves, the seabed has become a junkyard, and the chances of finding buried treasure are rare.

 

Henry and co’s troublingly prescient yarn is loosely drawn from the ideas of environmentalist James Lovelock, who posited the Gaia hypotheses, which suggests that the Earth functions as a self regulating system that helps maintain the conditions for life on the planet. If this can be counted as something of a spoiler alert, the sheer beauty of the visual and sonic poetry that brings the story to life gives these ideas a powerful humanity and a dramatic richness that brings home the everyday tragedies of the world’s environmental fallout with heartbreaking poignancy. 

 

The ensemble of John Carty, Sandra O Malley, Brian F Devaney, Áine Ní Laoghaire & Aisling Mannion tirelessly conjure up worlds within worlds over the play’s sixty-five minutes as they manipulate Jamie Vartan’s set with expert fluidity. Combined with Barry McKinney’s spectral lighting and Joe Hunt’s evocative sound design, this makes for an entrancing son et lumiere led drama. As it explores some of the greatest concerns of our age, it dives for dear life itself.

 

Tron Theatre, Glasgow until Saturday. Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, June 6-8.


The Herald, June 1st 2024

 

Ends

 

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Billy Elliot The Musical

Edinburgh Playhouse Five stars A big National Coal Board sign looms large at the opening of Lee Hall and Elton John's decade-old musical stage version of Hall and director Stephen Daldry's hit turn of the century film. In a tale of one little boy's liberation as a dancer against the backdrop of the 1980s miners strike, however, the Durham Miners banner and the 'Save Our Community' sash held aloft matter more. It is this call to arms that forms the heart of Daldry's production, as Billy becomes a potty-mouthed beacon of hope in a situation where picket line, thin blue line and chorus line rub uneasily up against each other. Given such a context, there is bound to be some pretty grown-up stuff going on here, be it the institutionalised homophobia in Billy's village, the class war going on within it, or Billy's grieving for his dead mother that drives his every move. And, as so magnificently choreographed by Peter Darling, what moves they are. Watch...
Post a Comment
Read more

Myra Mcfadyen - An Obituary

Myra McFadyen – Actress   Born January 12th 1956; died October 18th 2024   Myra McFadyen, who has died aged 68, was an actress who brought a mercurial mix of lightness and depth to her work on stage and screen. Playwright and artistic director of the Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, David Greig, called McFadyen “an utterly transformative, shamanic actor who could change a room and command an audience with a blink”. Citizens’ Theatre artistic director Dominic Hill described McFadyen’s portrayal of Puck in his 2019 production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre in London as “funny, mischievous and ultimately heartbreaking.”   For many, McFadyen will be most recognisable from Mamma Mia!, the smash hit musical based around ABBA songs. McFadyen spent two years on the West End in Phyllida Lloyd’s original 1999 stage production, and was in both film offshoots. Other big screen turns included Rob Roy (1995) and Our Ladies (2019), both directed by Mi...
1 comment
Read more

Losing Touch With My Mind - Psychedelia in Britain 1986-1990

DISC 1 1. THE STONE ROSES   -  Don’t Stop 2. SPACEMEN 3   -  Losing Touch With My Mind (Demo) 3. THE MODERN ART   -  Mind Train 4. 14 ICED BEARS   -  Mother Sleep 5. RED CHAIR FADEAWAY  -  Myra 6. BIFF BANG POW!   -  Five Minutes In The Life Of Greenwood Goulding 7. THE STAIRS  -  I Remember A Day 8. THE PRISONERS  -  In From The Cold 9. THE TELESCOPES   -  Everso 10. THE SEERS   -  Psych Out 11. MAGIC MUSHROOM BAND  -  You Can Be My L-S-D 12. THE HONEY SMUGGLERS  - Smokey Ice-Cream 13. THE MOONFLOWERS  -  We Dig Your Earth 14. THE SUGAR BATTLE   -  Colliding Minds 15. GOL GAPPAS   -  Albert Parker 16. PAUL ROLAND  -  In The Opium Den 17. THE THANES  -  Days Go Slowly By 18. THEE HYPNOTICS   -  Justice In Freedom (12" Version) ...
Post a Comment
Read more