| Imaginative and effortlessly seductive |
Theatr Iolo |
| Theatr Iolo- Under the Carpet , Chapter Arts Centre Cardiff , May 18, 2007 |
This review first appeared in the Western Mail...IT’S only 43 minutes long, has a mere 377 words of dialogue, a cast of two and is one of the best pieces of theatre I’ve seen this year. And, yes, you’ll be lucky to see it because the target audience – nursery-school kids – is too young to read this review. Sarah Argent’s new play for Theatr Iolo uses the words and ideas of some 80 under-fives – young storytellers whose tales can be as short as a sentence. A play made by adults for young children, even one that uses their own words and ideas, could so very easily be trite, patronising and twee. But Ms Argent has worked them into a marvellously simple, virtually plotless play about a couple of cousins who live together and who we meet on one of their birthdays. The characters are, in fact, young men, both neatly dressed in three-piece suits. And it is that slightly surrealist situation of two formal men who barely speak to each other simply occupying the stage, hardly speaking but engaging a mainly adult audience – at this special showing in Chapter Stiwdio, rather than in a nursery-school – but with a handful of young people at the front, that creates this immaculate drama. Ms Argent’s direction is so imaginative and the performances of Steve Hickman and Iwan Tudor so effortlessly seductive that it achieves that rare thing – it creates a mental world that is both utterly believable but constructed, where bees can be both real and imagined, where cakes can really be rolled-up socks, where snakes are ties that can be pressed, where there is no line between pretence and actuality. And, what’s more, the two of them play instruments and sing songs too. It is theatre as play, as magic, as make-believe, as relationships, as mystery, as a search and as interaction. They live in their own world yet they know we, the audience, are there, giving us the odd knowing look or complicit smile. It is, in a way, as essential as all drama, from the ritual to the burlesque – trying to make sense of life, but always bewildered by it – that draws here on archetypal pairings from Laurel and Hardy to Bill and Ben by way of Vladimir and Estragon. And the actors, especially Steve Hickman, incorporate some nice visual references to classic comedy acts. But of course, this is a play for the very young, and we as adults change its significance merely by being there. We apply adult criteria, we recognise the wit, the pastiche, the mime, the timing and the irony, as well as the comedy. We wonder how we’d see it if it hadn’t been for Buster Keaton, Grotowski, Brecht or Samuel Beckett. To those with childish – or child-like – eyes it is simply very funny and actually, of course, it has been made for the very young. Nevertheless, I wouldn’t have missed it: less is more, quality is paramount, theatricality is at its heart. It’s very much a total-theatre production, as we’ve grown to expect from Theatr Iolo, with Sarah Argent’s script and direction complemented by Jem Treays’s movement work, Charlotte Neville’s design and Jak Poore’s music. And the title? Well, that’s about a missing button. And it’s a long story, on and off about 40 minutes long, and with only two words – button and carpet. |
Reviewed by: David Adams |
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