Set within a world of projected film and animation, Out Of This World combines Mark Murphy's signature mix of ground breaking aerial choreography, original text and explosive special effects in a show that is both intense psychological thriller and heart-rending medical drama. Read more …
After a decade away making major, international civic shows and global sporting ceremonies, Mark Murpy excitingly returns to the stage to tell the story of a woman’s woozy descent into the depths of a medically induced coma. Once safely cocooned, her crashed imagination takes over the show - creating a vivid inward cinema in which she reviews her life. But after discovering a shocking truth and with the medical team moving in for the kill, she must escape her subterranean safe house in a very real fight for life.
There’s lots to love about it, but a forceful start is let down by an inconsequential conclusion.
Out of this World does take on major themes – the vulnerability of life and love, the inevitability of death, the nature of consciousness and the power of desire – yet resolves into a simplistic finale. There is magic in the visuals, but too little energy in the story.
Out of this World strives for something much deeper than spectacle – it makes a play for our hearts, and wins.
Enjoyable as these flourishes are, they rather overwhelm the weak dramatic content.
As so often with such multimedia performance works, V-tol’s piece is stronger on spectacle than narrative.
This high-octane production still remains a visually stunning spectacle throughout. With more emphasis on plot development it might even reach the level of the genre-defying psychological thriller that it set out to be.
The play’s thin and clichéd dialogue, that’s full of rather annoying repetition, detracts from the impact of the work rather than augmenting it.
Festival Theatre, Edinburgh from Tuesday May 23, 2017, until Wednesday May 24, 2017. More info: http://www.edtheatres.com/festival
RSS feed of Theatre reviews