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The
Argument - A Family Portrait Group: Theatre O |
| Andrew Chippindale | |
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The incarnation of Theatre O that returns this year to the Assembly Rooms, after a year away from the fringe following the massive success of their The Dark Tales in 2001, is a far more sombre outfit than its predecessor. This is no bad thing in itself, but don't go in expecting more of the same knock-about fun. There is still some of the hangover from the company's Lecoq training, but it is in abeyance, possibly even at odds with the melancholy tale of a family coping with the loss of a mother. This is a shame since when the company do go into all out physical mode it can still send shivers down the spine. One sequence where the father and mother meet, danced to the Divine Comedy's Geronimo, is particularly breathtaking. This isn't to say that the scripted bulk of the show is bad, far from it, but it lacks pace by comparison. Despite being apparently set in 1999 it seems far more like the 1940s or earlier with a chaotic backdrop of Victorian looking frames and pictures, the result looking like a Frantic Assembly deconstruction of The Cocktail Party. Indeed, despite some more modern soul-searching, particularly on the part of the daughter, much of the tone here is in that same mournful, elegiac key. 1
August to 23 August.
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