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Michael Cox reviews Kid Box, Invisible Walls, Theatre on a Long Thin Wire, The Object Lesson and Blood Orange.
Feng Dance Theatre’s Kid Box (***) is as much a technical installation as it is a dance piece. Broken into two interconnecting pieces, the production is a short celebration of childhood, the first looking at the bond between mother and child, the second a child going out into the big bad world.
There are moments to enjoy here. The dancing is quite well executed, and the music rather involving. But it is the technical, particularly the lighting, which impresses—mostly that used throughout Kid. In the end, this may not be the most exciting production on show, but at 45 minutes it is a worthy entry in the Summerhall programme.
Equally short but much more successful is Teatri Oda’s Invisible Walls (****). As an audience, we are given passports before travelling to a ‘country’. We meet a group of citizens, jovial (are they forced to be?) in seeing us, and they are all smiles as they welcome us to their land—until the war starts.
Taken from stories collected by the company, the production does a good job at creating a compelling atmosphere, where fear is the order of the day and the chance of escape is worth a gamble with death. It’s a fragile piece that might feel a bit slight at times, but it is still a potent piece of political theatre and has enough moments that linger to make it worthwhile.
Future Ruins has gone out of its way to keep its production of Theatre on a Long Thin Wire (***) as vague as possible, so in keeping with the spirit I will only confirm that, yes, a small group are led into a lone room that contains a chair and a mobile and…stuff happens.
While the production has many good ideas, some of which work well, as a whole it doesn’t quite come together and lacks much of the pathos it’s attempting. At less than an hour, it’s worth a gamble for those in the mood for something different, but not much more than that.
Something that is truly unique and not only has a lot to say but manages to consistently surprise, delight and even haunt is Geoff Sobelle’s rather excellent The Object Lesson (*****). Set in a large space that looks like a kleptomaniac’s hidden layer, the production is a look at the junk that we accumulate and how such objects can not only have sentimental value but also have stories to tell.
The production is an interesting balancing act, a mixture of performance, direction and design that is as much of an experience as it is a theatre production, and it could have gone wrong easily had one component not fallen into place perfectly. It’s far smarter that it first appears, and it includes one of the funniest and one of the most poignant moments I’ve encountered in a theatre for some time.
It’s the type of production that is thoroughly enjoyable when watching it but takes on a much deeper and meaningful interpretation the more one reflects on it. Do not miss it.
I truly wish I could say something remotely close to any of that in conjuncture with Blood Orange (**), a play with big ambitions and heart but little else.
The play, about a young man whose anger is steered into possible violence by a local thug, comes across not as a play but as a ‘tick the relevant issue boxes’ exercise. Any major social issue currently plaguing young Scots can be found here: racism, sectarianism, financial constraints, eating disorders, etc. I’d like to believe the company wanted to create a production and not an excuse for pulling in as much funding as possible, but going by all the issues covered in its running time, many of which are barely touched before moving to something else, one can’t be too sure.
The only positive is the performances of its 5-strong company. Everyone is fully committed to the piece: passionate, energetic and willing to push themselves hard. If only such creative energy went into the making of the script, this would be something special and not, as is said in Macbeth, ‘sound and fury, signifying nothing.’
All productions are on at Summerhall. Kid Box is on at 1300 (not 11,18), Theatre on a Long Thin Wire is on at 1630, The Object Lesson is on at 1800 (not 13,20) and Blood Orange is on at 1945 (not 11) until August 24. Invisible Walls is on at 1400 until August 12.
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