Lorna Irvine reviews 'a small, imaginative little trinket to cherish'.
Faux Theatre's Torn is really rather adorable.
Performed by Francisca Morton as a lovelorn gal along with Foley artist/composer Barney Strachan, it's a melancholic meditation on loneliness, breakdown and loss that's also as playful and mad as a basket of kittens.
Strachan, a dandy accompanying pretty waif Morton (in her pyjamas and Victorian hair rags) facilitates sound from unexpected sources like a demented radio play: crunching cat litter, using a whisk for a cat purr or just his own quirky noises.
This magical sound mirrors the gorgeous vintage set, as Morton's eccentric daily routine is interrupted by flashbacks of lost romance, symbolised by a pair of jeans and some flying popcorn. Paper, scrunched up everywhere, litters the set--a nod to the need for dreams, the creative process and the daily grind, grinding us all down.
There's an old b/w movie sweetness too which is irresistible, typified by the Marx Brothers-like mirror scene, but this heroine's ending is not a happy one--she unravels, spectacularly, preferring to hide bills and disappear into her own delusions of La Vie En Rose. Just a bird in a gilded cage, sequestered safely, where real life can't get in.
Torn isn't perfect--a little trimming down would perfect it--but it stands alongside Sanitise like a sister piece: a small, imaginative little trinket to cherish, nonetheless.
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