VEIL. To 18 April.

Tour.

VEIL
by Bob Frith.

Horse and Bamboo Theatre Tour to 18 April 2008.
Runs 2hr One interval.
Review: Timothy Ramsden 2 April at Burnley Mechanics.

Taking this Veil mixes striking images and sounds, alongside a recall of theatre past.
Horse and Bamboo’s show (on tour since the end of February) ranges between the Middle East and England, in a story covering two generations. It also marks 30 years of the company’s work, much of it spent in low-tech travel round the coasts of Britain and Ireland.

It’s been three decades during which theatre’s made great advances in the company’s area of masks, objects and movement, alongside increasing sophistication in performance technology. As a result Veil can seem almost quaint, a look back to times when such theatre was still breaking away from the domination of text-and-realism in Britain.

Still, all that time counts for something, and an audience comment after the show (“I’d definitely come and see them again”) shows the work is hitting home. Maybe it’s only in the main urban areas where home and international cutting-edge work tends to be concentrated that Veil acquires any sense of period patina.

Its story’s certainly up-to-the-minute with scenes from what’s clearly an Iraq-style conflict. Over-amplified music drowned the narrative attempt to explain the traditional Middle East tale created by shadow-figures at the start (this apart, Loz Kaye’s score, lively, mournful or emotionally sweeping score is a major force).

Three things disrupt the opening’s optimistic images of peace. There’s the rape of a country’s culture as, in scenes that have Elgin Marbles implied throughout, a huge carving is hoisted from the ground and transported to the West where it becomes the subject of academic discussion, divorced from its cultural context (if a sandy burial-place is that).

Then there’s the archaeologist’s rape of a local woman, followed by his taking home one of the two resulting daughters. Plus, of course, the war. Most movingly, Veil shows the daughters, grown into women, with their sense of loss and separation, seeking completeness by finding each other.

It’s here the most haunting images and human emotions occur, with the girls guarded closely by father-figures in their separate countries. And where, therefore, the consistent integrity of this company’s long-bred style gives conviction to work that can itself, at times, seem a type of theatrical archaeology.

Cast: Tracy Bargate, Tess Hills, Zoilo Lobera, Frances Merriman, Nabil Musa.

Director: Bob Frith.
Lighting: Richard Owen.
Composer/Music Director: Loz Kaye.
Movement: Alison Duddle.
Moving Images: Erik Knudsen.

2008-04-15 15:36:59