Mike Pearson |
| Pearson/Brookes et al- Saints , Chapter Arts Centre Cardiff , August 11, 2005 |
| This review first appeared in the Western Mail Can this really be summer ? No, not the rain but the fact that theatregoers had the choice of around a dozen shows in Cardiff alone this last week or so. Irresistible to the connoisseur of Welsh theatre was the promise of the latest collaboration between Mike Pearson and Mike Brooks – and Saints, indeed, was a not just an antidote to boring bourgeois drama but a summation of one major strand of Welsh performance development over the past thirty years, a pertinent contribution in many ways to the Passion Cardiff City of Drama festival. Expect to stand, to move and to be moved, we were advised in advance. And not only was the show – based on individual contributions from an impressive list of contributors – a trip down memory lane, a glance around at the audience, standing, of course, revealed that this was in many ways a nostalgic reunion and celebration of a kind of theatre that marked out Wales’s theatre practice from the mid-Seventies as something quite distinct. Saints is, of course, more than a Best-of selection of moments from the various practitioners who have worked with the likes of Cardiff Laboratory Theatre and Brith Gof, but often the smiles of recognition on the audience’s faces as they wandered around the seatless Chapter theatre suggested many memories were evoked during this remarkable performance. The fifteen-strong cast-list read like a who’s who of that kind of theatre that no-one likes to label – experimental, physical, fourth, performance, none describe it – including international successes like Eddie Ladd and Marc Rees, musician and composer John Hardy and even Chapter theatre boss James Tyson. Each of the participants was asked to bring along to rehearsals some material that would then be incorporated into the larger whole, so the vague narrative that emerged was imposed rather than organic, but the show did somehow develop its own momentum. I’m not sure if the whole actually ever got to be better than its parts, but some of those parts were stunning. For the clichés of the montages there was the balancing brilliance of brief bits like Marc Rees’s re-enactment of his homage to Toni Basil, complete with pom-poms, and against the tiresome falling-downs and across-the-floor dragging there was the eloquence of the Owen siblings Eddie Ladd and brother Roger in duet. Why do we not still hear the singing of veteran performers like David Baird and Sian Thomas (whose amazing vocal work was the most memorable part of Saints for me) or of Roger Owen – are these, like Mike Pearson himself to an extent, now so committed to administration and academe that they have be come part of Wales’s cultural history ? There was hope, of course, in the young performers whose names we did not recognise and whom, we assume, come out of Pearson’s Aberystwyth teaching, and who were impressive here. For audiences of that same generation Saints was evidence of a powerful, impressive practice that helped define Welsh theatre: Cardiff Lab and Moving Being (and there’s another retrospective to relish !) both created and influenced much of the most exciting work, with exceptions, to come out of Wales over two decades. For contemporaries in the audience, it was a treat to see and hear those contributors again – and to be reminded of that all-too-often missing ingredient that defines this festival: Passion. |
Reviewed by: David Adams |
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