Review of At Volcano Theatre from the theatre dance and drama in Wales web site

At Volcano Theatre

Volcano Theatre- Moments of Madness , Battersea Arts Centre, London , June 4, 2000

Volcano Theatre Company is well-named. Its productions are eruptions. In Moments of Madness this Swansea-based troupe claims Ron Davies's excursion onto Clapham Common as the inspiration for a state-of-the-nation piece - the Welsh nation, that is.

Five limber performers somersault, sing and soliloquise their way through episodes which begin with a satire on conference life and end in a bloody mutiny. They do so in a gleaming steel gym, shaped to resemble the hold of a ship, punctured by hatches and flaps which regularly, clangingly, shoot open to provide perches for characters, ledges for dotty objects - a pram, a rocking-horse, a plastic doll. But you'd have to be Merlin to follow the lava-like flow of consciousness here, or to work out, without recourse to a programme, that the show has been prompted by Ron Davies, whose interesting mysteries are neglected.

This talented company has tied itself to a maddening statement by Howard Barker instructing theatre practitioners that it's time to stop telling its audience 'stories they can understand'. Why?

Reviewed by: Susannah Clapp, The Observer

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There are 31 other reviews of productions with this title in our database:

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At Volcano Theatre- reviewed by Michael Kelligan (13 March 2003)
At Volcano Theatre- reviewed by Dic Edwards (26 September 2002)
At Volcano Theatre- reviewed by Dic Edwards (23 August 2002)
At Volcano Theatre- reviewed by Rebecca Nesvet (20 October 2001)
At Volcano Theatre- reviewed by Michael Kelligan (29 September 2001)
At Volcano Theatre- reviewed by Victoria Cooper (26 April 2001)
At Volcano Theatre- reviewed by Dic Edwards (01 April 2001)
At Volcano Theatre- reviewed by David Adams (31 March 2001)
At Volcano Theatre- reviewed by Rebecca Nesvet (01 November 2000)
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