Lorna Irvine reviews a 'fascinating' production with sly humour.
Brecht, Billy Smart and Swan Lake may be incongruous bedfellows, but they link Caroline Lamb (theatre performer and dancer), Mike Wright (aerialist) and Alexandra Pickford (ballet dancer): all over 60, all sharing stories of lives in the performing arts and bodies slowing down.
Agnieszka Blonska's production, part of Luminate, is provocation and meditation on the ageing process through a trio of fascinating perspectives.
Slyly humorous, they shatter perceptions of how older people should look and act, 'dancing off' various ailments, and asking what people think of the elderly--"They smell of urine and have old-fashioned furnishings" being two jaw-dropping examples.
Wright and Pickford perform topless at different stages, displaying impressive muscular physiques. The trio shimmy, glide, spin and shake to a glorious soundtrack, featuring everything from Mel Torme to Nils Frahm.
They stare out defiant, or chuckle at what was asked of them in dodgy auditions "for art's sake", and when Wright isn't performing on a circus swing, he lets go so it becomes like a metronome, ticking as time erodes.
Mark Parry and Steve Tanner's gorgeous photography and projections display extreme close-ups of bodies so they resemble maps.
But it's the playground games the trio play in long shadows that are most evocative.
The text on the wall and floor may read "The body which has carried me is now becoming a corpus" but the trio are still beautiful, still physically fit and vital. Still visible.
Part of Luminate Festival
At Tron Theatre until 31st October.
www.theatrebristol.net
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