SHIVERS tours till 30 April

SHIVER: Hattie Naylor
Platform 4 on tour (details www.platform4.org)
Runs: 1h 5m, no interval, till 30 April
Review: Rod Dungate, mac Birmingham, 9 March 2006

Haunting and strange
SHIVER is haunting and mysterious. It mixes fantasy with the very human; and human beings imbue playthings with humanity to make the inexplicable explicable.

A couple – Sugar and Sweetmeat are in the throes of grief – their son has drowned in an accident at sea. But his wife, whom they hardly know, has survived the accident and is living with them. Sugar and Sweetmeat must work through their grief and their mistrust of the daughter-in-law, only then can they find their own freedom.

This would be a moving exploration, but Platform 4 add another dimension. Gwendolyn takes to the water (in a bath); we come to believe she’s a mermaid. Her existence in the ‘real’ world is never explained, her disappearance, beautifully staged, we feel as a loss.

Platform 4 move through their play very slowly. This, with the sparse, frequently absent, dialogue gives the whole performance a dreamlike distance. The fantasy element enhances this. Sometimes I felt that Hattie Naylor’s language for the piece needed to achieve a different register, to become unified with the poetic feel of the piece.

The acting team is strong and their grief seems real because of their lack of control of it. Their sombre games to deal with it – touching. Verity Hewlett (Gwendolyn) has some lovely movement too.

I found the lightings sometimes too dark, though; this made concentration difficult and my attention faltered at times when I couldn’t see. Shame – I felt every element mattered.

Cast
Lisa Tramontin: Sugar
Verity Hewlett: Gwendolyn
David Matthews: Sweetmeat
Ben Crowe: Matthew

Catherine Church: Director
Jules Bushell: Sound Design and Composition
Helen Morley: Lighting Designer

2006-03-10 20:19:50