DOUBLE. To 4 July.

London

DOUBLE

Riverside Studios (Studio 2) To 4 July 2005
Mon 7.45pm
Runs 1hr 10min No interval

TICKETS: 020 8237 1111
Review: Timothy Ramsden 3 July

One last chance tonight to catch this fine show at Riverside tonight.Riverside's Feeast' of Central and East European Theatre goes into vertical lift-off with this central show, from Poland's COSmino, a troupe of youthful physical theatre performers. It has all the focus and originality missing from the opening, Ukrainian contribution. Here is a witty, fast-paced piece, its images integrated into a phantasmagoria of opposites.

There are the opposites that can look, and try to behave alike, such as the two shock-red haired girls seen with giant pencil-erasers at the opening. One can skip, the other struggles.

Then comes a black-suited chap with attaché case. At one moment it's solid, containing his lunch. Only moments before, as it rested on the bench beside him, it opened to reveal a white-suited doppelganger emerging from its shallow interior. The two seem about to merge, then separate as they cling and explore each other with a curiosity suggesting a single, split reality. Which re-emerges later as 2 telephones create a chaotic cacophony for black-suit, while white suit, helpfully or otherwise, bounces the phone receivers back at his opposite number.

It's this mix of doubles as complementary or oppositional, affirmation or denial, that gives the piece its particular edge. And the physical skill, shown both in the slowness of white on black or the speedy, mechanised movement in an hilarious battle scene for 2 knights not quite in shining armour. Moving like figures striking the hour on a giant public clock, they kill each other at least 4 times, refusing to die, while looks of surprise or pain give a comically human dimension.

Locations are simple an office suggested by a small table with telephone (the table sloping as its legs rest on different levels), a park bench. At the back a 2-dimensional cut-out old townscape has a clock whirling between day and night. Two presences interrupt the urbanity. A near-naked, (initially figged-leaf) character lopes on from the rear auditorium bringing the rhythms of nature sun, rain and a kind of earthy rock-chant.

Finally a dancing skeleton forms an intriguing if simplistic conclusion to what has otherwise been a finely thought-out set of ingenious polarities.

Cast and credits not available.

2005-07-04 10:18:17