THE OVERCOAT. To 24 January.

London

THE OVERCOAT
created by Morris Panych and Wendy Gorling

Canada Stage Company at The Barbican Theatre
20-24 January 2004
Runs 1hr 25min

TICKETS: 0845 120 7557
Review: Kim Durham 20 January

Epic mime adapted from two Gogol short storiesIf you thought epic mime was an oxymoron, think again. The Canadian Stage Company's wordless adaptation of two Nikolai Gogol short stories, The Overcoat and Diary of a Madman, is conceived on a grand scale.

With a cast of twenty-two, an elaborate 2-tier set and a thundering soundtrack comprised of music from Dimitri Shostakovitch, a theatrical form that usually plays small-scale venues is here given an operatic treatment that more than adequately fills the Barbican's main stage.

Creators Morris Panych and Wendy Gorling have peopled Gogol's metropolis with an army of commuters, office workers and other wage slaves. The space bustles with a teeming display of tightly choreographed activity.

Against the backdrop of this relentless action, the tale of a hapless Everyman, a lowly, downtrodden Civil Servant unfolds. Played by Peter Adamson as a Chaplinesque figure in a Kafkaesque world, his attempts to improve his status through the purchase of an expensive bespoke overcoat lead inexorably towards dislocation and insanity.

The constant swirl of movement by the cast and the driving score lends an inevitability to this downward spiral towards the madhouse.

At heart, The Overcoat is deeply fatalistic. Everyman's attempts at self-improvement are doomed to failure; dressing the part may provide a temporary disguise, but his innate inadequacy soon undermines the project.

The notion is heavily underlined by the staging. Every movement of the highly skilled and deft company is precisely linked to the dominating beat and cadence of the music. The cast play within a meticulously crafted but rigid framework, for much of the time appearing to be as much ballet as mime.

The whole is beautifully designed by Ken MacDonald and Nancy Bryant while Alan Brodie's lighting brilliantly and elaborately evokes the world of the silent movie. The overall conception is one of immense theatrical panache.

Given its skilled marshalling of theatrical forces and, indeed, the enthusiasm of my companion and much of the Barbican's first night audience, it seems therefore churlish of me to have found the event ultimately so disengaging and wearing. As occasionally happens, one finds oneself reflecting on the possibility that this may say as much about the reviewer as the reviewed.

The Man: Peter Anderson
Company: Victoria Adilman, Matt Bois, Mark Christmann, Judi Closkey, Diana Coatsworth, Tracey Ferencz, Peter Grier, Colin Heath, Ryan Hollyman, Matthew Hunt, Darren Hynes, Cyndi Mason, Allan Morgan, Graham Percy, Avi Phillips, Michelle Polak, Derek Scott, Sal Scozzari, Courtney J. Stevens, Brahm Taylor, Christine Welch

2004-01-22 16:21:39