Once Upon a Something by Trace Theatre
& And Hell Followed with Them by Drunken Chorus
greenroom, 18 March 2011
This was a double bill of performance pieces.
Of the first work, ‘Once Upon a Something’, you could describe it thus: entertaining, unexpected, ticklishly transgressive (i.e. not grim or edgy, but kind of kooky), fun (full frontal nudity is always that, I suspect, for performer and audience alike), mildly distracting (simultaneous narrative strands will do this to you, believe me). There were some sprinkled moments of touching humour and random joy.
Then there followed ‘And Hell Followed with Them’, some of which was scary while sometimes there was a black humour at work. It was very dark, this one: shadowy, noirish, tenebrous, words like these came to mind. You got scenes that might have been excerpted from a horror film, but no coherent narrative. Abu Ghraib has a lot to answer for.
