Two of Scotland’s foremost performing groups – theatre company Vanishing Point and string orchestra Scottish Ensemble – present a co-production that sets Arvo Pärt’s masterpiece Tabula Rasa in a theatrical context, exploring the recognised role of the piece in the care of patients during their final days. Read more …
With musicians forming an integral part of the drama, this visionary production is a life-affirming exploration of care, humanity, suffering – the uplifting power and endless importance, of art.
If the music of Arvo Part may not always be able to comfort the dying, there seems no doubt, here, that it can bring solace to the living, as they accompany their friends and loved ones to the brink of oblivion.
Despite its flaws it’s a bold production and thought-provoking, uncomfortable stuff.
Just as Goldsmith decrees in the first funeral monologue, "There was music...and it was fabulous."
Beautiful and brilliantly timely exploration of the end of life.
Some of Neubauten’s noise and grit would have been welcome in this thoroughly accomplished, overly reverential, oddly assorted and strangely flat affair.
If the music of Arvo Part may not always be able to comfort the dying, there seems no doubt, here, that it can bring solace to the living, as they accompany their friends and loved ones to the brink of oblivion.
The production achieves some affecting visual moments which, like the work as a whole, express an admirable desire to connect with the indefinable power of the music of Arvo Pärt.
There's a mournful intensity to this, which, by dove-tailing between words and music, becomes a slow burning series of routines designed to purge everyday tragedies by offering pause for thought among the pain.
While the overall portrait does not entirely avoid sentimentality, the raw honesty of Peter’s rage and anguish in the face of death is refreshing and Goldsmith delivers a sympathetic performance as the man’s helpless friend.
Vanishing Point and Scottish Ensemble team up for Tabula Rasa
Matthew Lenton, Jonathan Morton, Vanishing Point and the Scottish Ensemble--Tabula Rasa
Vanishing Point and Scottish Ensemble team up or new production Tabula Rasa
Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh from Wednesday November 8, 2017, until Saturday November 11, 2017. More info: www.traverse.co.uk
Eden Court Theatre, Inverness on Thursday November 16, 2017. More info: www.eden-court.co.uk
Tramway, Glasgow from Wednesday November 22, 2017, until Friday November 24, 2017. More info: www.tramway.org
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