Clare Sinclair reviews Cryptic's latest production.
Often a piece of music can be so evocative it takes the imagination on a journey, just as the music of David Lang has with World to Come / The Little Match Girl Passion, directed by Josh Armstrong and produced by Cryptic. Lang’s music is both sparse yet of epic proportions.
The double bill starts with World to Come – an exploration of that moment as we take our final breath and what lies ahead. Insular yet expansive, this meditative piece, played excellently by cellist Oliver Coates, is set to a filmed background by film artist Jack Phelan. We don’t know exactly what we’re seeing in front of us, yet it is this uncertainty which leaves the haunting yet strangely hopeful feeling lie thick in the air.
The evening of contradictions carries on as The Little Match Girl Passion is presented. At first glance this is a more lavish affair as we bear witness to a meticulous yet crowded Victorian room with period costume given a modern steam-punk edge. Yet even with four singers filling the stage there is a feeling of emptiness as the story unfolds. The passion of the four voices (Nicola Corbishley, Clare Wilkinson, Christopher Watson and Jimmy Holliday) has a chant-like quality to it; not immediately the easiest style in which to follow a narrative yet the weaving voices lend drama and suspense to the 35 minute long piece. Emma Snellgrove dances as the Little Match Girl above their heads as the tale unfurls, making this cinematic in style, and although it’s easy to imagine this piece in a large scale hall the charm in it lies in the intimacy.
More suited to music lovers than for theatre traditionalists, it is nonetheless a rich vocal and visual tapestry.
The Little Match Girl Passion has completed its run at Tron but performs at the Traverse November 22-23.
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