Polygraph. To 8 March.

Nottingham

POLYGRAPH
by Robert Lepage and Marie Brassard
Nottingham Playhouse To 8 March 2003
Tue-Sat 7.45pm
Runs 1hr 30min No interval

TICKETS: 0115 9419419
Review: Jen Mitchell 1 March

Director Giles Croft brings a stark, intense and demanding piece to the stage as the search for truth is revealed through three increasingly interwoven lives. The unsolved murder of a woman six years ago is the common thread that weaves together the lives of François, Lucie and Christof, initially through a series of coincidences. Opening on the coroner carrying out his autopsy, the narrative twists and turns as we are delivered a series of scenes or snapshots from the past six years that move between story lines and time frames.

Scene titles and dates projected on the stage prevent this becoming confusing, serving as a full stop between scenes and preventing the audience's continuing involvement with particular events.

Lepage increasingly blurs the distinction between life and art as Lucie is cast as the victim in a film about the crime. The audience is constantly challenged to consider what is fiction and what reality. The dance-like, balletic quality of much of the piece gives an eerie, haunted feel, adding to the confusion between life and art.

Sophisticated use of film, sound and lighting gives the piece a complex multi-sensory aspect. One wall across the stage unites every scene by the images projected onto it and pools of light cast across it. Meanwhile, each scene uses props suggestive of 'real life' settings.

The acting is wonderfully clear and precise with Trevor White delivering a superb performance as the tortured and tormented François.

Christof: Simon Coury
Lucie: Sophie Goulet
François: Trevor White

Director: Giles Croft
Designer: Mark Bailey
Lighting Designer: Jeanne Davies
Composition and Choreography: Matthew Bugg

2003-03-02 10:55:53