BREVIEW: BE FESTIVAL …Friday 07.07.17

Words by Damien Russell / Pics courtesy of BE FESTIVAL

It’s day four of the Birmingham European Festival (or BE FESTIVAL for short) and having been lucky enough to interview the festival directors Isla Aguilar and Miguel Oyarzun, I am keen to see how the event delivers the ‘dizzying array of entertainment’ that the programme has promised us.

As usual, I get lost walking through Birmingham (using whichever car park is cheapest has its challenges) but still make it in plenty of time and having been pre-warned that the event entrance is at the back of the Birmingham Repertory Theatre, I wander round and in. The setting has been described in Wednesday night’s BREVIEW from Paul Gallear but I would add that the visual art exhibitions are largely all interactive and nobody is left without something to enjoy, be it bar, video or art experience.

In good time, the call is made that the doors are open and though the event has unallocated seating it’s a well-natured queue. As there are four acts on per night it is understandable that the stage we are presented with on entry is quite stark and devoid of props; clean changeovers must be key to the timing of each night. This does, of course, lead me to think about what clever uses of staging we can expect, and that to me is always one of the joys of what I would be tempted to term ‘lo-fi’ theatre.

The format of the night remains the same as the previous nights and we begin our four-act lineup with Claudia Catarzi’s 40,000 Centimetri Quadrati – a dance piece that begins with minimalist movement and sound, yet flourishes into a fully musically backed performance that uses the full extent of the stage. The stage itself contains only an approximately 8ft square boarded section; Catarzi begins her piece moving within this area with uncertain, almost unnatural movements – more automaton than dancer, at times using what I would associate with the circus skill Isolation.

As the piece develops Catarzi explores the extents of this confined space, expanding her movements and increasing her fluidity to match the build in sound and lighting effects – until, eventually, she breaks free of the 8ft square board and her movements are almost jubilant. The message seems clear to me and while the idea of breaking ‘out of the box’ is certainly not a new one, it has never been presented to me in such a format before; I found the piece captivating in presentation, clearly understandable and overall, very engaging. Something as I will freely admit is unexpected; dance is not a medium that has ever really appealed.

As is typical for BE FESTIVAL we are asked to leave while the stage is re-set and it’s an opportunity to reflect and discuss what we just experienced. No bad thing. As we re-enter the auditorium, ODC Ensemble are onstage and performing an almost ‘on-hold’ introductory part of their act which is a nice touch. The stage is almost split into thirds: musical equipment to the left, a table with a 3D cardboard cityscape in the centre, with another table containing a laptop, small camera and some other technological items beyond my comprehension on the right. Each section has its own performer and while they are separate to a degree, they interact in turn throughout the show.

ODC Ensemble’s show, REVOLT ATHENΣconcerns Athens and is thematically in three parts: Athens as presented to and seen by tourists, the darker Athens behind that and, the Athens that the people there live in/with. Deeply moving at times, we are reminded that this Mediterranean paradise has the same issues as any major city and in some cases, worse. There is a stark emotional transition mid-way through, as the recent riots and political unrest in the nation are presented ‘warts and all’, but it gets a bit surreal after this mid-point and to my mind loses some of the impact of the piece. If grunge were theatre this would be it; excellent concept, important message, Marmite execution.

And then we break for lunch; dining on the main stage of the Birmingham Repertory Theatre isn’t something I do every day so, quite looking forward to it, I wend my way in. The room is as I would expect – it’s mass catering and a bit ‘school dinner’ feeling, but done well enough. Plenty of salad and bread on offer, the main dish comes hot and the staff are attentive. None of the performers sit at our table, which is a bit of a disappointment, but nevertheless, hunger abated, we return to a stage which now contains an unusual array of objects: a small paddling pool, several jugs of water, a table with ping-pong equipment and juggling rings and a flip-chart on a stand.

This of course is the setting to What Does Stuff Do? performed by Robin Boon Dale, intriguingly advertised as ‘using innovative juggling, physical comedy and almost-philosophy’. And I’m certainly not disappointed. Dale is an engaging performer, eloquent and disarming, and his performance moves through a number of circus acts and prat-falls designed to display items and acts we can easily recognise, yet modified and taken out of context to challenge perception.

Dale moves through his act smoothly, dazzling us with his skills and making us laugh with his mishaps. I am never certain if any of these mishaps are actually accidental or if they are all for effect and that is part of the charm of the performance. Perhaps not the most emotionally challenging act of the night, I nevertheless feel What Does Stuff Do? is the most entertaining and Dale’s point is clear – every new scenario offers us a new opportunity to be who/what we want to be in the context of what is around us, which is a valuable life lesson in evaluating our actions. Dale describes himself and us all as ‘tools’ in the context of his philosophical point; never have I been called a tool in a more appropriate and enjoyable manner.

There is no break between What Does Stuff Do? and Waiting for Schrödinger, our final staged act of the evening; Timothy and the Things enter the stage, backs to the audience to begin their predominantly dance related act. It’s never made clear who Timothy is and who are the Things, but as the first group performance which is not lead by one of the cast over the others, who is who is clearly not important.

The group move through a surrealistic show where interactions between them are designed to apply the Schrödinger’s Cat theory to a more realistic scenario. I find myself more affected by the surrealism of it than the message for much of the performance, I must admit. But the message is still there as we see cast members dealing with isolation, exclusion and vying for dominance before being pushed away.

Waiting for Schrödinger moves in ‘scenes’, and while each scene is well put together some of the transitions feel clumsy at times. The last slot of the night is always a tough one to have, tougher than the first in some ways, and while not a bad performance or a bad piece of work Waiting for Schrödinger unfortunately doesn’t quite top the bill for me.

Before it’s time to go home we take part in the BE FESTIVAL’s commissioned British Enough? ‘immersive experience’. The show begins and almost immediately I am put in mind of The Running Man by Richard Bachman (aka Stephen King) and George Orwell’s 1984 having a baby, and that baby growing up in Harry Harrison’s Make Room, Make Room.

Moving through the previously inaccessible backstage areas of the theatre we are treated to a dystopian view of what entering the British Isles could be like, where immigrants, migrants and asylum seekers are forced to compete against each other (and the state) in an intense and disconcerting environment.

The performance by Kristina Cranfield and Foolish People is excellent and British Enough? is certainly immersive. I must admit, I had been expecting something more educational about our current situation than this extreme future representation and I can’t help but feel the piece ends a little weakly. But as a lover of immersive theatre I’m certainly not disappointed.

‘Groundbreaking’ or ‘artsy’ theatre can be a little hit and miss, and even though an event like BE FESTIVAL has a screening process for acts there’s still always a risk of something not being to your taste or even just being too unobtainable/obscure. But my experience of BE FESTIVAL 2017 is that while the programme pushes the boundaries of traditional performance, it remains vigilant in keeping things accessible to a broad range of people.

There are things I didn’t ‘get’ entirely and things I didn’t like entirely, but nothing alienates me entirely; as a new audience member, there was plenty that actively encourages participation and engagement. So if a challenging but accessible series of thought provoking acts sounds like something you would enjoy, BE FESTIVAL is an event to fix in your calendar for 2018.

For more on BE Festival, including a full event programme and online ticket sales, visit www.befestival.org

For more from the Birmingham REP, visit www.birmingham-rep.co.uk

BREVIEW: BE FESTIVAL …Wednesday 04.07.17

Words by Paul Gallear / Pics courtesy of BE FESTIVAL

We can’t avoid Europe these days: it’s in our parliaments, our newspapers, and our consciousness; on our television screens, our news bulletins, and our ballot papers. And now it’s in our theatres too.

BE FESTIVAL (Birmingham European Festival) landed in Birmingham for its seventh year on 4th July, aiming to bring with it, according to their website, ‘a daring and innovative programme of boundary pushing theatre, dance, comedy, circus, music, visual and performing arts’.

And Europe is certainly here as I step into what feels like the service entrance to the Birmingham Repertory Theatre (REP); a diverse mixture of people, speaking at least four different languages that I can detect, mingle in a raw, industrial backstage area of the REP. This space (the theatre’s ‘Construction Workshop’) acts as the hub of the festival. It has the Karma Bar with its own currency (The Karma), a stage for live music, a shabby-chic seating area of furniture all jumbled together, various banana-themed sculpture (Elizabeth Hudson’s Free Movement) and works by other artists to spot around the venue. The feel is edgy yet arty, middle class yet urban.

Soon we are asked to take our seats and are ushered around corridors which pass by dressing rooms and conference suites to the performance space. The crowd is full and the stage is bare, save for a telephone and a chair. Isla Aguilar and Miguel Oyarzun, the festival’s directors (interviewed here by Damien Russell) take the stage for brief introduction and then the show can begin.

The SenseMaker by Woman’s Move of Switzerland is the first piece – the story of one woman (played by Elsa Couvreur) waiting for human interaction from an automated phone message and her increasing frustrations, bringing to my mind the increasing role technology plays in our lives and the way in which bureaucracy is perceived. The dancing, mixed with elements of mime and sign language, builds with increasing frenzy and keeps the audience and myself hooked.

The spoken word/singing is no less impressive, combining a bewildering array of languages and sources such as Jethro Tull, Rammstein, Nicki Minaj, yodelling, and Eurovision, all with the constant of Beethoven’s ‘Ode to Joy’ bursting through exuberantly at the crescendo. It is an excellent performance, a funny and triumphant start to the evening that leaves me hopeful of a great night.

A quick change of set (during which the audience is asked to leave the theatre) takes us into the next act, Portraits and Short Stories by Panama Pictures, hailing from The Netherlands. The stage has expanded greatly and now features platforms, ramps, a pole, a trampoline, and a rope, but no props. An old man sits alone.

This modern dance piece aims to ‘explore the relationships binding families and different generations together’. Five more men enter, aged 20 to 60, and all the players begin to interact with each other and the set. A visually busy performance combines elements of parkour, circus skills, pole dancing, ballet, trampoline, acrobatics, and rope work. It bristles with sensuality and physicality. The diverse and changing nature of relationships between people is captured in the movement of the players – now tense and posturing; now gentle and loving. The intensity builds as the routine becomes more daring and more frenetic. Portraits and Short Stories sees the best reaction of the night, with more than one audience member on their feet. And very well deserved. After two strong opening acts I have high expectations for the second half of the show.

After an interval for a meal served on the REP’s main stage, the third act of the night – Marco D’Agostin from Italy, performs Everything is OK. Again the theatre has changed; the enlarged space remains but the platforms and trampolines have been cleared away to leave a stark, white space.

An explosive and fast-paced monologue, touching on rap, song, speeches, and movie quotes, bombards the audience with a plethora of hard-to-follow references in a number of different languages. As promised in the programme, D’Agostin is out to ‘challenge our ability to compute endless information’. He then bursts into his equally wide-ranging dance routine which covers a myriad of styles. The peaks and troughs of energy are matched with the subtly-changing lighting and the austerely beautiful music. Everything is OK, although similar to The SenseMaker as a combination of dancing and lyrical content, is not as captivating and lacks the humour. I find it difficult to engage with the long dance routine, though I admit dance is not a subject I am very familiar with; the audience response, whilst still good, is also more muted.

All change again for the final act of the evening. The Casa Da Esquina Company from Portugal presents Ricardo Correia in My Country Is What The Sea Doesn’t Want, and a more crowded stage, featuring filing cabinets, a desk, and a suitcase.

Correia is the main focus of the piece, relating his own story of immigration and those of other people he has interviewed. Sara Jobard stands at a desk, providing occasional visual content through a small video camera, maps and an array of props set out on the table before her.

The show is funny and engaging – mixing various media such as photography, videography, physical theatre, and audience participation – but it fails to stick to a coherant narrative and the characters aren’t clearly delineated. The video link seems to suffer from technical problems too. The message of My Country Is What The Sea Doesn’t Want is clear and noble but disparately presented. I am, however, left with a an emourmous amount of sympathy for Correia and those portrayed in his work.

The night continues back in the hub, where The Brave Sons of Elijah Perry have just taken to the stage to provide ‘a Mississippi boat-load of energy’. But alas, with my last train departing, I have run out of time to watch them just as I have run out of space in which to review them.

At BE FESTIVAL tonight, the first half of the show was the stronger of the two. At times it all felt a little chaotic (I’m still not sure why we had to leave the theatre between each act, nor why I had to show my ticket each time I reentered) but perhaps that reflects the backstage-feel the event strives for. BE FESTIVAL promises an eclectic mix and it certainly delivers, and although not everything is quite to my taste such a wide-ranging bill is bound to have something to please almost everyone. The space at the REP is certainly well used by both the festival and the performers and all of the acts managed to convey to me a sense of the purpose of their work with minimal use of props.

There is a clear message of hope and celebration of the diversity of Europe coming from BE FESTIVAL and I leave feeling enthused by most of what I have seen. The night overall manages in its ethos to reflect Europe and its vagaries as a whole; some parts are strong and some parts are weaker, but it is diverse, exciting, funny, tragic, exuberant and, most of all, worth hanging on to. We can’t avoid Europe these days, and nor should we.

For more on BE Festival, including a full event programme and online ticket sales, visit www.befestival.org

For more from the Birmingham REP, visit www.birmingham-rep.co.uk

 

INTERVIEW: Isla Aguilar & Miguel Oyarzun – BE FESTIVAL

INTERVIEW: Isla Aguilar & Miguel Oyarzun – BE FESTIVAL / Graeme Braidwood

Words by Damien Russell / Lead pic by Graeme Braidwood 

I’m sitting in the Marmalade Cafe in the Birmingham Repertory Theatre (REP) waiting to interview Isla Aguilar and Miguel Oyarzun – directors of the Birmingham European Festival, or BE FESTIVAL for short.

In this tumultuous political time, a festival of European art seemingly has no choice but to move beyond mere celebration and it has become in their own words, a responsibility. And bringing together performers from the UK, Germany, Switzerland, Netherlands, Italy, France, Spain, Greece, Portugal and Hungary, in styles incorporating dance, circus acts, puppetry, music, traditional styled theatre and more, BE FESTIVAL seems to be setting out to prove once and for all that we really are Better Together. As the festival programme says, ‘here, in the inclusive city of Birmingham, the multifaceted cultural identities and creativity of a continent will once again be celebrated through performance and art’.

Isla Aguilar and Miguel Oyarzun are lovely, approachable people, and our discussion runs to over 45 minutes – far beyond what my tired digits can type out in a single sitting. However, through everything we discuss their enthusiasm and passion are remarkable and heart-warming to see.

It’s a cheap start but I can’t help myself. I go back to square one and ask how the festival came to be. Miguel Oyarzun starts off, explaining “in November 2009 the Arts Council – in collaboration with the cultural sector in Birmingham, started a series of meetings and open talks with the idea of looking at how can we improve the scene in the Midlands. We had a friend that was from Birmingham, at that time we were living in London, and we said ‘why don’t we go to Birmingham and see what’s going on?’” So the birth of BE FESTIVAL came from interest outside of the city?

“At that stage we were thinking about setting up a theatre company,” continues Oyarzun, “and so we said ‘okay, well, we’ve never been to Birmingham, let’s go and see what the scene is like.’ We came to one of the open talks and it was a two day talk so after the first day we were saying ‘gosh, these people are great, they’re up for collaborating, there seems to be a good sector and they’re all talking about international work and saying there’s not enough. There’s not enough international work coming to Birmingham. At that stage the REP had just closed, or was about to close down to refurbish, so there was even less as the REP do bring some international work but even with the REP there wasn’t enough.”

“So we asked people ‘so when is the Theatre Festival happening? The International Theatre Festival?’ Assuming there was one. And they said ‘no, there’s no theatre festival. There’s a brilliant performance festival, there are festivals of music, festivals of cinema, but there’s no theatre festival.’ We were kind of a bit surprised by that really.”

“It’s (Birmingham) the second city of the country and it was kind of weird,” add Isla Aguilar. “In Spain almost every single city has a festival of theatre and here the tradition is much bigger than in Spain so we were, like, wow, this is kind of… awkward.”

And so through raising the question in an open talk with members of the Arts Council, the City Council and the wider artistic community, Isla Aguilar and Miguel Oyarzun became the organisers of this long standing event. I smile at how raising an issue in an open forum can so often lead to you finding a solution to it yourself. Some clichés do prove themselves time and time again.

We talk more about that first year; I ask how the programme looked for their debut. “We put out a call (for acts),” tells Miguel Oyarzun, “and received 67 proposals which at the time we thought ‘wow, 67’…” “…this is massive” adds Ilsa Aguilar, before Oyarzun finishes, “now this year we received 1070. So, you know.”

I know. BE FESTIVAL has certainly grown since it began and it seems to be an annual event that doesn’t sit on its laurels or stay in its comfort zone. As the directors themselves write, the event has ‘the ultimate aim of breaking down borders, that only serve to divide us’.

The programme is expansive too, with this year presenting a variety of shows and subjects from pertinent to the more playful. There’s Paula Rosolen & Haptic Hide Aerobics ‘recalling the ’80s-born trend for aerobics’ in Aerobics! A Ballet in 3 Acts (Tues 4th / Germany), alongside The SensemakerElsa Couvreur’s one woman dance show ‘to a quick-switching backing track’ (Weds 5th / Switzerland) and Anatomia Publica – the story of a solider returning home after being presumed dead to find his wife remarried, ‘performed in an intense style that bridges physical theatre and dance’ as presented by Man Drake and Tomeo Vergés (Sat 8th/ Spain, France).

So seven years later, with more than 15 times the production proposals coming in, how do Isla Aguilar and Miguel Oyarzun come to choose the acts at BE FESTIVAL“The idea behind the programme has always been a kind of festival to cross borders so we programme work that does that,” explains Oyarzun. “The first criterion is the quality and then we programme work that does one of the following things; one, to cross disciplines. So work that is in-between dance, theatre, circus, puppetry, any kind of discipline.”

“The second thing would be that they cross the language border. So it’s work that is either not using words, so, communicating through physicality or through other means. A show that would fit into that is a pure theatre show where they use masks and there’s no words so we see everything that happens before the words are needed or when there’s not a need for words any more… Emotion and content come from a different place that is more touching, that is deeper than words.”

Quality is also key at BE FESTIVAL and “everybody has to do an application and goes through that application process” continues Aguilar. “It’s a way also that we will see a lot of people that have not necessarily made it onto the circuit yet. It’s a way to discover companies who are doing amazing things and it’s beautiful because each year we feel confident that we have companies that haven’t been seen in this country or haven’t been seen on many other festivals and we are giving them their first opportunity.”

“And that doesn’t mean they don’t have quality”, adds Miguel Oyarzun, “it’s an extraordinary programme of beautiful unique art. Some of the companies are world class companies. However, they may have not jumped into the stages of the UK yet or some of them are very big in their countries but haven’t come. Some of them are not big in their countries but have a lot of potential or are very good but for some reason they haven’t managed to get their art out.”

We touch on Britain leaving the EU (the referendum vote took place during BE FESTIVAL 2016) and as organisers of a festival celebrating European work it comes as no surprise that the political situation is a concern – one that changes the tone of our discussion to a more sombre one, tinged with sadness. But whatever their personal feelings, Isla Aguilar and Miguel Oyarzun are keen to see people come together at BE FESTIVAL and openly discuss their thoughts and apprehensions, “it takes a lot of work to bring people together,” begins Oyarzun, “it’s something that you build very little by little and then it’s very easy to break things apart. It takes much less work to do that… of course, we would want this to be open to people who think differently to us and hopefully seduce them that another Europe is possible and we can live together.”

BE FESTIVAL has also commissioned a new piece of theatre exploring the subject, with British Enough? showcased on Thurs 6th, Fri 7th and Sat 8th July. A collaboration between artist/filmmaker Kristina Cranfeld and writer/director John Harrigan, this new production explores ‘the notion of becoming British’ through the ‘fixed, itemised cornerstones which are deemed critical by immigration officials for fitting into British society’.

The underlying messages are challenging perception, encouraging thought and providing quality – “making these (theatre) doors more accessible to the people”, tells Isla Aguilar, and trying to “make them feel comfortable in here. A way to cross borders”. Isla Aguilar and Miguel Oyarzun want there to be a healthy platform for debate and expression throughout BE FESTIVAL 2017 and both “expect this year to be particularly lively and energetic”.

Togetherness, diversity, quality and opportunity, these are BE FESTIVAL watchwords – an event that despite its best intentions of being a celebration of art, has become more than that. It’s become a celebration of people, open thought and communication, of hope and potential.

BE FESTIVAL 2017 – official trailer

https://vimeo.com/220815348

BE FESTIVAL runs at the Birmingham REP from 4th to 6th July. Day tickets are priced at £20-22 (with dinner) or £12-14 (without dinner). Weekly tickets are priced at £100 (with dinner) or £60 (without dinner).

For more on BE Festival, including a full event programme and online ticket sales, visit www.befestival.org

For more from the Birmingham REP, visit www.birmingham-rep.co.uk

BREVIEW: The Play That Goes Wrong @ REP (House stage) 19-24.06.17

Words by Lucy Mounfield / Production pics by Helen Murray

On those occasions when a comedic play enters a theatrical program, it’s always a pleasure to know I don’t have to sit up straight, hold my serious-yet-intrigued face and attempt to think too hard about the plot and what it might mean in the larger context of today’s messed up society. And in today’s post- referendum, post-election but not-quite-the-formation-of-Parliament, now is surely the best time for comedy to lift and carry us over this wall of insanity.

The Play That Goes Wrong does exactly what it sets out to do – it tells the story of amateur actors trying to bundle their way through mishap after mishap on stage. Written by Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer and Henry Shields, The Play That Goes Wrong shows The Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society going through the motions of putting on a clichéd ridden 1920’s murder mystery called Murder at Haversham Manor. This is the play within a play bit; you don’t watch The Play That Goes Wrong to find out ‘who done it’.

Even from the beginning the actors break the fourth wall and talk to the audience, asking if we know where their missing props are. This immediately makes it inclusive. Before the curtain rises we are introduced to the director of Murder at Haversham Manor, who also is doubling as Inspector Carter (Chris Bean) a pompous wannabe thespian who is embarrassed by the previous shows put on by the Cornley Drama Society. These include ‘Cat’ and ‘Ugly and the Beast’.

Chris Bean is excellent as the eager director who halfway through the performance breaks down when he can’t find a ledger, which quickly prompts the audience to shout its whereabouts (an audience plant?) making the scene even more hilarious as the ever-professional director tells the excitable audience to be quiet as “it’s not a pantomime”. This obviously incites the audience into a bout of “oh yes, it is” which is then jousted back and forth; this surprise element heightened the fun and made it feel spontaneous.

However The Play That Goes Wrong didn’t make me laugh as much as I thought I would. The title forewarns us about the disasters that befall the amateur acting troupe, and consequently I was waiting for the merriment rather than surprised by it. Indeed everything that can go wrong does and by the end of the play it’s just the actors left standing (though barely) with the set giving up entirely.

The pace of the extended joke is relentless – one thing after another – but as each physical joke occurs I laughed a little less and by the end I was wanting less and less of it. Sure I laughed and so did everyone else, The Play That Goes Wrong can be very funny, but with two acts I felt it was getting strained rather than leading me excitably to the crescendo of the entire set collapsing. The jokes about the door slamming open and knocking out Florence Collymore (Sandra Wilkinson) and the alcohol replacement forcing Thomas Colleymore (Robert Grove) to spit it out repeatedly became a little laboured.

When The Play That Goes Wrong first premiered at the Old Red Lion pub theatre it was just one act running at under an hour, now it is two acts (and an interval) that hits the two hour mark. I think after the interval was the point I began to realise that of course the hilarity is planned; after that I struggled to enjoy it with the same zeal.

The set design by Nigel Hook is incredible, it moves like an actor constantly aware of its surroundings and nimble on its feet. The set has perfect comedy timing; moving, falling and collapsing in just the right way as to squeeze out as much comedy value as possible. Most of all it does create that camp 1920’s murder mystery vibe: the grandfather clock not chiming, long velvet curtains that someone can hide behind, leather armchairs and wood flooring that make that perfect echo which in turn creates the perfect murder mansion feeling.

The costumes are bang on too: 1920’s flapper dresses and headdress for the Florence, tweed jackets, the ubiquitous velvet smoking jacket for the middle-aged gentleman, and the even more ubiquitous pin-stripe cricket outfit complete with jumper for the young fool. This combines to heighten the fun we are at first presented with, something The Mousetrap would be proud of until it all gets a bit wobbly and starts falling to pieces.

The Play That Goes Wrong is a light-hearted show that just wants to make people laugh in the crudest way possible. In my opinion, it goes a little too far and our laughter peaks before the end of the show (or at least mine did). But all in all The Play That Goes Wrong is a respite from the chaos of our current situation; it will take you away from the misery going on in the real world, let you release your clenched jaw, form a smile and laugh… a lot.

The Play That Goes Wrong – Mischief Theatre

The Play That Goes Wrong will be running daily at the Birmingham REP (except Sundays) until Saturday 24th June. Matinee performances will be held on Thursdays and Saturdays at 2pm. For direct event info and online tickets sales, click here.

For more on Mischief Theatre, visit www.mischieftheatre.co.uk

For more from the Birmingham REP, including full event listing and online ticket sales, visit www.birmingham-rep.co.uk

BREVIEW: La Strada @ REP 08.05.17

BREVIEW: La Strada @ REP 08.05.17 / Robert Day

Words by Damien Russell / Production shots by Robert Day

A road never truly begins or ends.

I’ve searched it and it’s a genuine quote from yours truly, which is a nice change from something I’ve heard in passing or on the T.V and accidentally claimed as my own.

In a conveniently representative way, the story of La Strada never truly begins or ends either.

For those who aren’t aware, the story starts as our protagonist (it’s early and I’m not feeling generous enough for ‘heroine’), Gelsomina, is sold to the (technically antagonist, but not quite) strong-man Zampanò. But there’s already history between them, with a missing sister (deceased) as well as some back story around an absent father (also deceased). Not exactly your ‘once upon a time’ beginning. The two have a dysfunctional relationship centred around Zampanò’s sense of superiority and power, alongside Gelsomina’s struggle to find useful skills and her devotion to a man who is, in a sense, abusive.

The story ends as abruptly as it begins, with Gelsomina leaving Zampanò. We follow his journey to the point where he finds out what happened to her – leaving him in a sadder, guiltier place than where we started, but still otherwise intact. So ‘happily ever after’ it certainly is not either.

Resolution and finality were never on the cards with La Strada. Luckily I have no problem with this since Waiting for Godot entered my life by accident some years ago; it’s something I’ve come to expect from a certain type of work from that era. I say ‘era’ as I’ve struggled with the definition of neorealism and why certain works of the time ‘are’ and some ‘are not’, so I shy away from the labels and go with my gut.

BREVIEW: La Strada @ REP 08.05.17 / Robert DayEqually, I have come to expect little in the way of major character analysis. The idea of that style seems to be the presentation of snapshots of life, events and the characters therein, with the rest discarded as irrelevant. So with that in mind, I also expected the actual content of the script to be quite fixed without any huge deviations from the original film.

I approached this latest representation of Fellini’s classic work hoping for innovative staging, with good character interplay through stage presence, lighting and direction. I also hoped for a good score, as I know the score for this version of La Strada was produced specifically for it. I was happy to see that all three things were present and correct.

The first thing before us as we sat and settled, was the stage. Stark wooden flooring containing a number of wooden boxes (reminiscent of old fruit boxes) and two telegraph poles, one front – stage right, one back – stage centre. Those, and the instruments, were all that were present and all that was needed. Any further scenery was provided by the clever staging and the cast members themselves playing the lead, support, orchestra, and setting as required. Naturally the odd tablecloth, light, bowl etc came into play, but the setup was minimalist.

The use of the stage was well thought out and through the flow of people (and the few props) they created open space, movement and separation in turn. I was particularly impressed at some of the scene changes and at the way so few cast members could bring fluid movement and change. I loved the fact that the stage itself had been left largely bare to keep space for the actions and people – and through those actions, they rendered additional staging redundant.

And while I mention fluidity, it’s worth saying that I found the transitions between prose and song to be very smooth indeed. I had expected musical pieces, but I’ve often seen musicals make stark changes leaving the audience wondering why that person had suddenly burst into song and spoiling the flow of the show. I never got that feeling in this production of La Strada; I was also impressed by the score itself, feeling both contemporary and appropriate to the setting. Excellent instrumentation (but then a double-bass and cello are a dead cert for me) and skilled musicians added to an unexpectedly positive element.BREVIEW: La Strada @ REP 08.05.17 / Robert Day

The cast themselves were the sort of people I like to call ‘annoyingly talented’. A full suite of vaudeville skills were displayed by all, and whilst some cast members were better at some skills than others nothing ever came across as being ‘bad’. My only criticism was that in some instances the acting itself was a little more wooden than I would have liked. However this may have been in part due to the multi-lingual cast and script; we saw English, French and Italian at various points, and I in particular loved the nod toward the play’s Italian origins.

A brief note on the direction and script use; I was pleased and surprised in equal measure to see that this production of La Strada followed in the fashion of a ‘no holds barred’ approach. There were sections including swearing (often humorously added), violence (less humorous) and sexuality, whilst the underlying theme of domestic abuse wasn’t undersold. I’m not entirely sure if the parents sat to my left regretted bringing their young daughters or not, but the kids themselves seemed engaged with the play. So all’s well that doesn’t bug the hell out of me, bleating or rustling sweets.

I walked into the REP excited but uncertain: knowing that a stage production of La Strada had a lot to live up to, knowing that we had been promised much, and hoping that the delivery would be half as good as it needed to be.

I left the REP surprised and pleased, thoroughly entertained and impressed by this production of La Strada. Absolutely recommend. Not necessarily for less worldly wise children.

The Belgrade Theatre Coventry’s Production of La Strada is presented by Kenny Wax Ltd, in association with Cambridge Arts Theatre & Bristol Old Vic. For more on La Strada, including details of the full UK tour, visit www.lastradalive.com

For more from the Birmingham REP, including full event programme and online ticket sales, visit www.birmingham-rep.co.uk