WILD JAM. To 31 August.
Tour
WILD JAM
by Kneehigh Theatre
Kneehigh Theatre tour to 31 August 2002
Runs 2hr 15min One interval
Review Timothy Ramsden 1 August on De La Warr Pavilion Terrace, Bexhill-on-Sea
From village-hall to esplanade: Kneehigh reworks material from two previous shows into an imaginative, fiery extravaganza.Kneehigh here offer an open-air reworking of two village-hall tours. It's a sign of this distinctive Cornish group's ownership of their material that it seems new-minted.
Superb teamwork – to know what 'ensemble' theatre means, watch Kneehigh – creates an unusual spell. Through collaborative creation, they have developed an organic, apparently low-tech style with the performer at its centre. Scene changes are as compelling as scenes: the distinction becomes superfluous in such seamless work. And it takes time to realise a couple of the performers are really there for music and technical staging.
Even programme-selling is part of the act, done before the cast play a song, becoming a travelling troupe, possible asylum-seeking nomads with comic, yet not condescending, mid-European accents. Throughout their two stories, they bounce references to their performing personas – 'He is a great actor in his own country', of someone who later announces 'I am a great actor in my own country'.
Amid the word-spinning these tales focus on two near-silent characters. The first reverses the seal-wife story, being about a boy who speaks only one word and longs to dive forever into the sea: a remarkable metre-high wood-puppet with a face that stares forward with urgent longing, or, tied-down to a chair, looks miserably downcast towards the floor. Liberated, he swims through the air, as if free in the ocean.
Kneehigh raise a storm here, amplified waves crashing around as the cast throw windswept garments and stagger around: spectacle rooted in a collaborative performance style.
This simple tale ends too soon; narrative complexity comes with Mrs Wolf and Red Riding Hood – ironically portrayed in a tiny high voice by the ruggedly hirsute Giles King (Kneehigh take that theatrical tough-nut 'alienation' in their stride). Strolling the stage or carried on one of the company's versatile carts in fur-coated splendour, Emma Rice's Wolf-woman is a fearsome gangster: silent and still while others slither fearfully, her eyes somehow mixing ruthlessness and innocence.
At times here, the company-within-a-company playfulness became indulgent – a story can be variously paced, but mere irrelevancies encourage a 'get on with it' response. Still, Kneehigh remain essential viewing.
Mother/Wolf: Emma Rice
Father/Red Riding Hood: Giles King
Everyone Else: Craig Johnson
Animator/Technician: Pete Hill
Musician/Musical Director: Ian Wellens
Director: Mike Shepherd
Designer: Bill Mitchell
Lighting: Alex Wardle
Costume: Karen Webber
Choreographer: Emma Rice
Additional script/lyrics: Anna Maria Murphy
Additional music: Craig Johnson
Puppet: Tim & Paul Spooner
Carts, construction and making: John Voogd, Dave Mynne
2002-08-03 11:13:36