The trilogy was completed in Newport after parts one and two last year, below 18th February and 28th March 2018.
It had two performances, without a press night. Charmian Saville, long-term observer of performance, chose a first adjective for its description. That word was “dreadful.”
Get the Chance was there:
“The STORM cycle is a series of multimedia works that aims to explore the themes of truth and testimony, it includes original texts, specially created sounds and novel physical acts. TOGETHER AND ALONE succeeded in including specially created sounds – the composition was eery and worked to punctuate the piece. It also drew on Simone de Beauvoir’s Pour une moral de l’ambiguite, a work that explores the varying ethical attitudes of people and how they relate to the idea of “freedom”.
“TOGETHER AND ALONE presented, through 8 different people, a different view of freedom and what their freedom means to them.
“It is an interesting concept showcased against a high-impact backdrop; the cast and audience all stranded together on a stage that could be the prow of a ship, or the floor of a warehouse, or a holding area for refugees. Strewn around are clear plastic bin bags rammed and bursting forth with clothes, as if people have packed to leave, or have donated to charity, or have left somewhere in a hurry. Two large screens displayed statements that seem like negative rewrites of inspirational quotes.
“The spectacle of this, when entering and waiting for the action to start, boded well. But the reality, when things “got going” was that there would be no action. As tremendous as each actor may have been, it was impossible to enjoy their hard work – the words delivered were a series of self-reflective testimonies and as much character as the actors tried to put in it was stripped away by the overwhelming monotony of it all.
“Perhaps this was the point – we live in a world where we talk about, think about, tweet/ insta/ facebook/ snapchat about ourselves; we are so preoccupied with ourselves and how we see ourselves within the world, and how we think and want others to see us, that we do nothing of real importance.
“Whether this was the point or not, it simply felt tedious. I was working so hard to take in the words, but the movement and interaction that were there (and, be assured, the actors did as much as they could), just weren't enough to fill the gaps of character and story; the total absence of energy meant that I missed all the substance, the nuances, the political leanings, because I was too busy worrying about how long it would take for my knee to start hurting from all the standing, and thinking about how it could be made more dynamic and engaging.”
Abridged from the full review which can be read at:
https://getthechance.wales/2019/03/28/review-storm-3-together-and-alone-national-theatre-wales-by-harriet-hopkins/?fbclid=IwAR1vSfQnQrZK3qLH2oBPYlrEXpQCofGYxJdHTFVgpViJyRWRy7g8oqfHP3c |
