At Earthfall |
| Earthfall - I Can’t Stand Up for Falling Down , Chapter/ and unknown space somewhere in Cardiff , April 12, 2003 |
| What would you expect to happen in a vast empty warehouse on the south side of Cardiff? Well I guess that’s not something most people would bother to spend a lot of time thinking about. But something quite remarkable and extraordinary happened in this particular warehouse on this particular evening, viewed by a very small privileged audience but there should have been hundreds there! It has long been an established fact that in any one year, more people go to the theatre than to football matches. At first sight this may seem hard to believe but it has recently been re-confirmed. The warehouse was near the Cardiff City football ground. I am sure that if the ‘Echo’ devoted as many pages to theatre in the capital as it does to football we would have equally as many turning out to see us. There would also be an equal number of stories of Actor wives or partners and other scandals! It was loud it was impressive it was EARTHFALL re-siting their latest production, I Can’t stand up for Falling Down “with a bigger band, a string quartet, an opera singer”, in this vast industrial cavern. The overall impression was a whirl of precision; vital dancing with loud penetrating music that got us all shook up inside. This was my first Earthfall experience and my first time appreciating just what experimental physical theatre is all about. Artistic directors Jessica Cohen and Jim Ennis are true, fearless and driven innovators. The Spring edition of The New Welsh Revue carries a very interesting interview with Jessica and Jim by Penny Simpson setting out their raison d’ętre. It is also reproduced on this web site. Central to the action were the dancers, Charlotte Grant, David McKenna, Terry Michael, Roger Mills, Cai Thomas who responded with absolute perfection to this difficult and challenging choreography. They worked, for practical and safety reason in a retained ‘stage’ space as in the theatre production here reworked to spread throughout the vast space of the warehouse. The venue added an extra dimension of excitement especially, at the opening with a white van racing towards us speedily and nosily and braking with an echoing squeal. This did to some extent make the narrative line and the motivations a little difficult to follow. This was of little consequence here as the movement and the interplay of the musicians led by Roger Mills, with their scratching DJ and the man with the video camera, Glen Davidson, as much an actor as the rest, moving around projecting the same images that we were watching on to the side of the white van with the occasional leaping freeze frame inside the white canvas house/tent, a beautifully voiced opera soprano Angharad Morgan, singing from high on a gallery gave our eyes, our ears and our brains plenty to engage with. Gerald Tyler as a father figure, narrator, with his clear voice and Machiavellian touch hinted at where we should be at with our imaginings, sometime deep in thought sometime surreally and bizarrely funny. It was good to see that however expert the achievement the company were quite happy to put their tongues in their cheeks and introduce a slice of humour from time to time. With the involvement of designer Mike Brookes’ electronic genius Earthfall have taken us on another experimental theatrical adventure and we have all come away the richer for it. |
Reviewed by: Michael Kelligan |
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