1984 at BAC

Though the creative use of puppetry is what theatre company Blind Summit is known for, puppets don’t dominate their new production of 1984 – they don’t need to. In George Orwell’s terrifying vision of life in a totalitarian state, every aspect of life is subject to control.

The company’s previous work includes the Charles Bukowski influenced Low Life and they also provided the puppets for Anthony Minghella’s Madam Butterfly, but here the puppets are only part of the fabric of a witty, sinister production.

A neat framing device sees the story of the thought criminal Winston Smith and ‘his whore’ Julia being performed by a travelling community theatre group as a lesson on what happens when you defy Big Brother. Winston is a worker in the Ministry of Truth, where he spends his days rewriting old news reports in order to bolster Big Brother’s omnipotence and erase the very existence of dissenters. He has been harbouring doubts about the regime for some time and embarks on a furtive relationship with the similarly disillusioned Julia. When they are together, they are human – living, loving individuals – not simply cogs in a vast grinding machine (it is fitting that the production visually references King Vidor’s The Crowd).

Winston and Julia rent a shabby room in the Prole District, where they believe they will be safe from prying eyes, at least in the short term, but Big Brother sees everything and it is with a degree of inevitability that Winston finds himself facing the harrowing prospect of Room 101 in the Ministry of Love.

Mark Down’s production draws out the comedy of the situation, something that was admittedly not particular evident in Orwell’s text, and enthuses every scene with visual ingenuity. There are some wonderful executed moments and a scattering of chairs and some pieces of cardboard are all that’s required to recreate the various scenes of the novel. A particular highlight is the staging of the rebel text The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism using a white bed sheet and some cardboard signs; it’s a fast, funny and very inventive scene. And of course there are the puppets, simple yet emotive things. There are puppet birds and bunnies and a spindly child threatened by falling bombs. These are stringless puppets, each limb manipulated by a performer and the connotations of this within the context of the narrative are clear (though the company spell things out for those not paying attention).

The ensemble cast work well together and Simon Scardifield, as Winston, and Julia Innocenti, as Julia, convey a strong sense of being normal people in an abnormal world. The balance falters a little towards the end and, perhaps as a result of the framing device, the final scenes of torture suffer from being too stylized – the full horror of Orwell’s denouement is diluted.

Despite that, this remains a potent, engaging and highly inventive rendering of a novel that has lost none of its edge or resonance over the decades.

Reviewed for musicOMH

Enjoyment of show enhanced on spotting this in the bar afterwards:

On Emotion at Soho Theatre

Question: when is a play not a play? Answer: when it’s an essay with characters attached.

While On Emotion raises some fascinating points, about how the human mind works and about the gulf between reason and emotion, as theatre its scaffolding is always very visible, one can see the thinking behind every scene and interchange, to the detriment of the drama.

On Emotion is the latest in Mick Gordon’s series of On Something plays (On Love, On Religion) and the second one on which he has collaborated with the neuropsychologist Paul Broks, following On Ego.

The play concerns a cognitive behavioural therapist, Stephen, and his two children, Lucy, a rather self-absorbed young actress, and Mark, who, conveniently in a play that deals in the workings of human feelings, appears to have some form of autism. Though his condition is left unspecified, he has many of the associated poor social skills that come with it: he has no concept of fear and a tendency to repeat verbatim conversations he has overheard. Mark cannot read emotion, preferring instead the world of Star Trek, the logical mindset of Mr Spock; his greatest pleasure is his 8 o’clock visit to his father’s study to look at the stars through a telescope.

Stephen is treating one of Lucy’s friends, Anna, an artist and puppet-maker (which, once again, feels a bit too neat, seeing as the play’s main thrust is that we are puppets of our emotions). Anna is beset by dark dreams and angry outbursts; she is sinking, but Stephen is helping her keep her head above water. Recently divorced, he is also attracted to her, and, while composing a lecture on human emotion (much of which he delivers direct to the audience), he indulges his sexual fantasies in the privacy of his study.

This brief masturbatory interlude seems an initially tasteless scene, but then this play is asking its audience to address and question why certain scenarios trigger disgust and upset in people, so in that sense it is fitting. But like so much else in this play it feels as if it were included to illustrate a theoretical point rather than as a way of evolving the plot.

The strong cast do much to give shape to potentially two-dimensional characters. James Wilby has the necessary air of authority as Stephen, but is also able to show the human frailties beneath the professional veneer. Caroline Catz strikes the right balance as Anna: she may be losing her grip, but she's still far more grounded than her flighty friend Lucy, played by Rhian Blythe (recently seen in Gordon's acclaimed Deep Cut).

Mark Down, stuck with the difficult role of Mark, a man who engages with the world on a different level to most, manages to sidestep some, if not all, of the clichés inherent in such a character. Down is also the co-founder of Blind Summit, the puppet theatre company responsible for the cool three foot high space man puppet that is given considerable stage time.

While the meat of Stephen's lecture about the way in which emotions shape our interactions with the world is indeed fascinating (as was Broks’ book Into The Silent Land, which is definitely worth seeking out), the play into which it is woven feels too contrived to genuinely enlighten. And, crucially for a play that deals with emotions, the would be pathos-tinged ending is inexcusably unmoving.

Words once more borrowed from musicOMH.

Having primed myself for puppets, I was disappointed at how little they featured. Ah well. There were other things to engage with. The couple directly in front of me seemed to disagree though. They fidgeted, chatted and giggled almost from the start before making a noisy exit about twenty minutes from the end (they were in the middle of the aisle and there was no interval). I've seen many a thing at the theatre that hasn't really done it for me, where I've felt no connection with what's happening on the stage and the minutes have crawled by as a result, but I still think it's a little unfair to inflict your displeasure on those around you. Tsk.

Puppets

When I was in Palermo earlier this year I quickly discovered that the need-to-do thing cultural thing was a spot of Sicilian puppet theatre, but in the end I never went, for when I saw the puppets – they were everywhere, displayed in shop windows and cafes – I found their spindly and inanimate forms rather unnerving. They creeped me out; so instead I invested my energies in gelato consumption and crossing the street without being mown down by unobservant motorists (a sport in itself in Sicily) and enjoyed a pleasantly puppet-free holiday.

I’ve always found puppets a little upsetting. There is a shop somewhere in Clapham full of the things and every time I walk pass it I imagine them coming to life after dark and maybe holding little puppet ceremonies in which they sacrifice a Care Bear or some such thing to their little puppet gods.

But now having had, not one, but two positive puppet experiences in one weekend, I realise how wrong I was, for it is not the puppets per se that I dislike, for when brought to life by skilled performers they are quite amazing – I understand that now, the subtlety and precision in both shows was astonishing – it’s just when the puppets are vacant and lifeless that they make me shudder.

The first show on my puppet double bill was Blind Summit’s Low Life at the BAC, which I saw as a kind of primer to On Emotion which opens at Soho Theatre this week and also features their work, and also because I wanted to address the whole puppet thing, to look it square in its (creepy, painted) face. This was a slight but very enjoyable show. Apparently taking its inspiration from the writings of Charles Bukowski, it was set in dive bar populated by both people and puppets. But really the setting was just an excuse to string together a series of sketches: a character called Kevin (portrayed by a puppet who is the spit of Kevin Spacey) fights with his wife for one last drink and ends up performing a balletic airborne duet with an empty glass; an elderly cleaning lady gets worked up about the outcome of the book she is reading; a faded star of the stage smokes a cigarette and makes a pass at the bartender; a tiny plumber embarks on a Mission: Impossible-style adventure to fix a leaking pipe; and 1940s B-movie is re-enacted using a series of little blue men.

With the exception of the last sketch the puppeteers are always visible, there is no attempt to conceal them or distract from their manipulations. With up to three people controlling each puppet, the way in which the performers create the movements becomes as fascinating as the puppets themselves. There’s no plot, hardly any dialogue and for a show of an hour, it felt a bit stretched, but within it there were some very tender, funny and magical moments.

The same – well, the tender, funny and magical bit – can also be said of puppet show number two: War Horse at the National Theatre, which I finally caught on its Sunday matinee. There’s probably not a lot I can say about this that hasn’t been said already, as I’m rather late to the party on this one, but oh my, weren’t the horses amazing: cloth and wood and wire, but so wonderfully life-like. From the stiff-legged, Bambi-like foal to the magnificent adult animal (when Albert first jumped into the saddle there was an audible ripple of excitement). Yes, it’s kind of baggy plot-wise and veers towards sentiment at the end, but given its source material (Michael Morpurgo’s novel is narrated by the horse, something the play has not tried to replicate) I think this is acceptable. In the closing scenes, the whole theatre seemed to be physically willing this horse to stay alive and the moment when one of the horses dies and the puppeteers (who again are visible, though never distracting) tumble out of the animal and slowly, respectfully walk away, it was as its spirit was quietly departing and it almost, almost made me cry a little bit.

Describing the production to a friend today I was searching for a photo online to illustrate my babble, but the horses invariably looked a little rubbish in two dimensions, you really had to be there to see them move, to see them whinny and buck and stamp and nuzzle: to see them live. I found the look of the production also quite powerful. Rae Smith’s design fitted the piece perfectly, the sketches flickering in the background were very effective and, in the trench scene, it featured one of the best uses of the Olivier revolve I’ve seen in a long time. Being Remembrance Sunday, the cast all returned to take their bows sporting poppies, which was a lovely, thoughtful touch and the play itself made me think about the First World War in a way I’d not really done so before, the devastation of land as well as life, Europe as a battlefield, for once the trenches and the pain and the mess of it all felt geographically as well as historically grounded in my mind.

I won't say I'm totally over the puppet thing but I am dealing with my issues (I will still be keeping my distance from that shop in Clapham though, I'm not that brave).