BLIND_SIGHT To 7 November.
Scotland
BLIND_SIGHT
by Stewart Laing from the novel Des Aveugles by Herve Guibert translated by James Kirkup
Untitled Projects tour to 7 November 2003
Runs 1hr 30min No interval
Review: Timothy Ramsden 1 November at Tramway, Glasgow
In ways good and bad, it left me in the dark.The cast-list below shows two characters called The Favo(u)rite' spelled differently. Slip, or significant discrepancy? The question applies to several major aspects of blind_sight.
Director Stewart Laing opens by describing the set: a classroom containing three desks with three pupils, an upstage TV set with a board (unused) behind. Another TV stands outside the room. There are nine ceiling lights.
Twice, lights will shine on the audience for a set change. Twice the TV image will be comic an uncomic noise will sound. A stage character appearing on screen will have different voice quality Laing demonstrates. A Touch Tour is offered for after the performance.
Exemplary Access techniques for non-sighted audience members in a piece about blind characters. But, would they all detect the scene-change lights? The comic images, and accompanying noise, never occur. The changed voice-quality is never noticeable as in Laing's demo.
It's not mentioned that one ceiling light shines a different colour. There's little visible scene changing, though Laing swoops onstage to place a video-camera. His intro named the 3 characters sitting at the school desks. Two are as described. The other actor plays many parts, but not the one named. Scene 2 introduces an important new character Laing never mentioned.
All's not as it seems, reflecting the play's cruel world-within-a-world, as the TV screen often repeats the classroom image. A journalist's assignment introduces him to a school for the blind one which apparently links to a home for ex-pupil adults. Only in old-age are they thrown among a wider populace. He reads them his novel of cruel passion, with a pet mouse deliberately blinded, murderous plot and counter-plot, sex and frustrated desire. The class become his characters.
The story's power is contained in a frame of epic cool and a web of possible deceit. How many tricks are being played? During the action movement, including jumps on and off desks, is clean and clear as any sighted performers, yet the cast takes the curtain-call in a blind-leading-blind human chain. Voices have the flatness of untrained performers or of trained actors creating tonal flatness. All very puzzling.
Josette: Nikki Cockburn
Robert: Chris Jack
Reader: Aaron McCusker
Taillegeur: Leyland O' Brien
The Favorite/Pet Shop Assitant/director of Institute/Furrier/Young Man: Kirin Saeed
Young Man on Screen: Jamie Harrison
The Favourite on screen: Marcus Hercules
Director/Designer: Stewart Laing
Sound: Graham Sutherland
Video: Chris Nelms
Voice support: Ros Steen
Script editor: Anne Marie Timoney
Tour;
5 November The Lemon Tree Aberdeen 7.30pm 01224 642230
7 November MacRobert Stirling 8pm 01786 466666
2003-11-05 11:21:56