pool (no water)
Lyric Hammersmith, London

Andrew Haydon
posted 7 November 2006

pool (no water) is the result of the first collaboration between Mark Ravenhill, one of Britain's most prominent and intelligent playwrights (both on and off stage), and Frantic Assembly - perhaps Britain's premiere 'physical theatre' company, whose recent work, as well as a host of their own shows, includes movement direction for the hit of this summer's Edinburgh Fringe, Black Watch, as well as Market Boy at the National Theatre.

In the programme notes, Ravenhill admits that he didn't really have much time for physical theatre (indeed, on first meeting Steven Hoggett and Scott Graham at the National Student Drama Festival, he greeted them as 'the Ant and Dec of physical theatre'), fortunately Ravenhill was intrigued enough to agree to an experimental collaboration, of which pool (no water) is the eventual result.

Having spent time fruitlessly workshopping various ideas, the collaborators eventually stumbled upon a shared fascination with the work of photographer Nan Goldin (interestingly, also inspiration for Dominic LeClerc's recent physical theatre piece, Shadowmouth, for the Sheffield Crucible). From here sprung the tale of four art school friends in London, who, as the play opens, are seething with resentment at the success of an erstwhile colleague who has made staggering amounts of money in America. This is a deft study of envy within the artistic community, and the frustration of those stuck working on community arts projects that some colleagues are actually making money from their work. It is also very funny - 'I'd like to spit up her cunt,' volunteers one jealous artist. The quartet decide abandon their community projects to go and visit their friend ('after all, we can't save every crack-addicted single mother'). Then, during a drug-fuelled party, the successful artist dives into her swimming pool only to find that it has been drained. She is immediately hospitalised in a coma.

So far, so normal. From here on in, both the physical work and the narrative are allowed greater and greater freedoms, until it becomes a demented morality tale crossed with satire of modern friendships, me-culture, artistic aspiration, wrapped in Grand Guignol as the four friends begin to exploit the inert body of their hospitalised friend in the name of art - there is a time-lapse physical sequence in which three of the friends take it in turns to commit greater and greater outrages upon her person (one does indeed 'spit up her cunt') - whether this is intended to be taken literally is unclear. Nothing which occurs in it is referred to in the text. But the meaning, what the power that the four 'failures' now have over their successful friend is doing to the group, is utterly explicit.

Ravenhill is a subtle moralist; the sympathy of the audience ebbs and flows around the actions of the four friends, switching between sympathy for them as underdogs to contempt for their breathtaking avarice. The script is also very witty, and, if the pools of sudden localised laughter on the heavily papered press night are anything to go by, has also captured some genuine foibles of Ravenhill's peers into the bargain.

The physical work by Frantic Assembly is, as expected, of an exceptionally high standard. What is interesting is how good the non-movement-based work is. Besides their reputation as innovators in the field of physical theatre, Steven Hoggett and Scott Graham deserve recognition for the excellent performances they get out of their actors - there is a lovely quality of 'naturalness' coupled with a total awareness of their theatrical context. Here is a genuinely interesting play of ideas - and one with a proper plot to boot - married to brilliantly executed physical work; well worth a visit.

Till 18 November 2006.