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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

 

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