EARTH ANGEL. To 4 December.

London

EARTH ANGEL
devised by Catherine Hoffmann

Southwark Playhouse To 4 December 2004
Mon-Sat 7.30pm
Runs 1hr 20min No interval

TICKETS: 020 7620 3494
Review: Timothy Ramsden 29 November

A picture is worth a thousand words; the problem here is: What are the words worth?On a screen a woman walks; through its gauze we just glimpse a bed. It's as if the woman is walking towards the bed. Yet her feet are above it. And she never reaches it, the illusion of walking into the distance being offset by the screen's two-dimensional reality. This dreamlike impression is a strong element in a variable show.

In live and video sequences, the woman experiences birth and fertility-related fears and nightmares. Dreamy snow blows across the scene, but it's also an image of cold. The woman is blindfolded, with a white bandage then red wool that began as a bloodlike patch on her bed. The flowers where she lays on screen give way to earth pouring, Alien-like, from her middle. Later, earth from a derelict urban site reverses itself on to her spade.

In contrast to the dark earth, she floats carrying a lighted ball - through streets, occupied by (again) reverse-motion, scurrying figures. The earthly and angelic run side-by-side through the piece.

The price for such images is the staged sections. These continue the imagery. Under its covers, the bed has a layer of dark earth; planted there are light-bulbs, which eventually form a human outline. The woman produces and, seemingly, eats whole a raw egg (there's an ovular suggestion to the light-bulbs' outline too). At the end, there are screen images of the naked woman walking among caves with vulva-like mouths.

This pattern of images suggests concern, at times agony, over fertility and birth, in a world of dark, death (grave-like inferences from light-bulbs implanted in the bed's earth, illuminating a human body's outline), and social alienation (the figure floating through streets of busy people unaware of her).

But concept, theme, or even pattern of images, don't make a piece of theatre by themselves. It's necessary to endure some near-embarrassing performance, involving child or woman-and-child activities: turning bandages into playthings or tying up pillows. These offer little illumination and are lacklustre in performance. A picture might tell a thousand words; the trouble here is, a thousand words add up to very little.

Performer: Catherine Hoffmann

Lighting: Helen Morley
Composer/Musician: Alfredo Genovesi
Directorial assistance/Filming/Incredible Support: Julia Bardsley

2004-12-01 08:14:31