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Fabric of Sleep |
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Exploding Fish Society, University of Aberystwyth |
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Morlan Centre Aberystwyth |
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May 5, 2009 |
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I am always nervous when watching a devised piece, there is always the aspect of the unexpected present. When I was told that the Exploding Fish (I know – unusual name) Improvisation and Devising Theatre society were putting on a production for Aber Fringe I was a mixture of intrigued and perplexed. Could this production be as good as the others we have seen in Aber recently?It was. And not just by a little bit. Fabric of Sleep was a wonderful experience. The director (Nikki Smith) showed a wonderful grasp of devising theatre and her work with the actors clearly showed as this meticulously planned plot must have taken months of care and development. Speaking of the plot, this in itself is a subject of debate. Unlike most devising pieces that I have seen, this one used a lot of movement, choreography and abstract thought. So to pin it down to one storyline is hard, but this is my personal attempt at the plot. Set in a futuristic world, the dreamers (Michael Jones and Megan Pritchard) are living in a confused place, where sleep is forced through medication. No one can sleep and when they do they have the same unimaginative dreams over and over again. Meanwhile in the dream world “the sins” are bored as they have nothing to do within the dreams, they haven’t seen “the weavers” who create the dreams. They stumble into one of the few groups of weavers left, and find the only imaginative dream, that is of Jones character. He is then inadvertently transported to the dream world when the Fabric of Sleep is ripped. Jones and the sins, then have to help the robotic-like weavers, bring dreams back to normal, and give everyone the good night’s sleep they deserve. The set for this production was simple enough, as we entered the theatre a large piece of purple fabric blocked off the stage. The opening monologue was spoken there with us all standing then we were ushered into the depths of the dream world, an empty stage with two white walls. This is where the lighting and sound really worked well. Nikki Smith created a good lighting design, but however notable this was it was overshadowed by the wonderful soundscape created by Adam Miller. His creative use of music, sound effects and voice-over’s helped take us away from the theatre and into this dream world. His work is some of the best that I have seen recently and is a credit to Exploding Fish Society. The actors again were all wonderful, I particularly liked the weavers, and their “choreographed” piece at the end was one of the best improvised scenes I have seen. I know some other critics have commented that the choreography in this scene wasn’t perfect, and although this is true it is not meant to be; the technique used made it a completely improvised scene, each time was different. This made it incredibly enjoyable to watch. Some actors clearly stole the show, Leigh Kemp as a confused teacher was a hysterical character which bemused the audience, and brought laughter to what could be a trying scene. The weavers should again be credited as their compositions showed a lot of skill and talent. Michael Jones as the dreamer showed that he has a lot of talent and potential that was used well in this show. The simple concept of his character was brought out so well by Jones that he deserves credit. I would have liked to have seen more character development with “the sins” as however good they were, sometimes it was hard to distinguish which sin they were (I am presuming here they were the seven deadly sins) but this idea worked well and was integrated into the story brilliantly. In conclusion I am quite sad that this production could be a one off. It’s a beautiful piece, well made, very creative and a pleasure to watch. I have heard rumours that the creative team would like to take this piece to NSDF, to which I would highly recommend they do. It is a piece that is well worth watching. As the first production of the Aber Fringe festival, Fabric of Sleep has set a very high standard for the other productions to meet. They should be proud of the good work that they have done. I wish them all the best for the future. |
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| Dave Taylor | |
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