Cirque de Glace – Evolution

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Cirque de Glace, Cirque de Glace - Evolution, Evolution

Cirque de Glace – Evolution
The Lowry, 29 April 2011

There is no possibility of this ice show leaving you cold.

The spectacular skating, dancing and acrobatics; the fabulous special effects and costumes; the grandeur of the story – the show tells the tale of life on earth  – all this will make your pulse race ever so much faster.  Some of the stunts have a genuine sense of danger about them; you hold your breath as you watch.

We begin with the Big Bang and the formation of our sun; we end where we are at, at the minute: human beings as masters of creation, the earth’s future imperiled by our actions.

One could critique the ecological polemic that lies at the heart of this work, and there’s quite a leap from the end of the first act (where man has just invented the wheel and discovered fire) to the beginning of the second act (which finds us on the moon, having sussed out space flight): a bit of a truncated timeline, you might conclude.  But actually it is all about what happens on stage: the show, the reveal.  And that’s spectacular and spellbinding, absolutely breathtaking as has been said.

 Cirque de Glace – Evolution is an extravaganza and an entertainment extraordinaire.  It is at The Lowry until 1 May, details are here.

Folie à Deux by Green Eyed Zero

Folie à Deux
Green Eyed Zero
The Lowry, 28 April 2011

A rare work that uses some quite unusual means to explore the experience of mental illness.

The means involved include juggling, acrobatics and video, as well as music and monologue.  A multi-touch screen plays a significant role in the performance; it allows the actors to rearrange fragments of images and scenes, among other things.

It is a challenging work, demanding the audience’s full attention, but a rewarding one in the end.  What is noteworthy, above all, is the way in which the so-called ‘circus skills’ serve the story: juggling suggests a precarious balance and cohesion, which can be overturned as balls unexpectedly fall to earth.  There is harmony, fugue and discord.

Do be warned that there are two scenes depicting auto-asphyxiation.

On the whole this is a compelling and cogent work of theatre, at once engrossing and provocative.

Folie à Deux is at The Lowry until 30 April, details are here.

5 @ 50 by Brad Fraser

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5 @ 50, Brad Fraser, Jan Raven, Teresa Banham

5 @ 50
By Brad Fraser
Royal Exchange Theatre, 18 April 2011

Photo: Jonathan Keenan

Brad Fraser’s contemporary play takes a long look at the lives of five women as they approach their fiftieth year.

One has a seemingly perfect marriage, but appearances can be deceptive; another encounters serious illness and disruption at work; a lesbian couple have difficulties with alcoholism and (more insidious, this one) emotional dependence; while an ultra-modern dame with her head screwed on feels the need to replenish her spiritual and sexual life by replacing her long term partner.

It has a bit of a soap opera, ‘issues by number’ feel to it, does this play.  There’s an unmessy, non-organic, flat-pack assembly instructions vibe about it.  All except, perhaps, the way Norma (Teresa Banham) uses alcohol to control and modulate Olivia’s responses, to quell her growing doubts about their relationship (Olivia being played by Jan Raven, who’s excellent, as is Teresa Banham).  That seems true and authentic and not a little sinister.

Overall, this play has too few telling or significant moments.

Mamma Mia! @ the Palace

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Benny Andersson, Bjorn Ulvaeus, Catherine Johnson, Jennie Dale, Mamma Mia!

Mamma Mia!
Music and Lyrics by Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus
Book by Catherine Johnson
Palace Theatre, 26 April 2011

What could be more topical than a musical about  a wedding?

Mamma Mia! is perhaps the preeminent example of what Larry Stempel, in his magisterial work Showtime, calls ‘the jukebox musical’.  That is, the musical which takes songs from a certain period (say the 1950s) or which has been built around the back catalogue of a well known artist or group.  The great advantage of such musicals is that the songs are already familiar and well loved; the main downside is that the songs weren’t originally meant to express the emotions of the characters who get to sing them.  They may feel contrived when sung on stage.

It has to be said that the above mentioned disadvantage is hardly felt in Mamma Mia!  Indeed, the two dozen or so ABBA songs slot seamlessly into place.  As well as the songs, the dance routines are spectacular and there’s a lot of humour and vivacity to this production, especially from Jennie Dale as Rosie.

And the story of a child searching for her biological parent will always pack a certain primal punch – wasn’t the film Oranges and Sunshine built on just this premise?

This was exhilarating entertainment, but watch out for those platform boots!

Pina (2D) by Wim Wenders

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Pina, Pina (2D), Pina Bausch, Wim Wenders

Pina (2D)
Directed by Wim Wenders
Germany, 2011
Cornerhouse, 24 April 2011

Still from Pina (2D)

Dance is possibly the prime example of the audiovisual: we watch the dancers, their expressive and rhythmic movements, as we listen to the music that propels them hither and thither.

Wenders’ film is about a fellow artist and creative explorer, the dancer and choreographer Pina Bausch.  We are shown some footage of her, but the documentary mainly takes the form of interviews and testimony from dancers who had worked with her as part of her company, the Wuppertal Tanztheater.  There are also some striking performances of the work.

On the eve of a premiere, Pina apparently said to a dancer: ‘Remember, you have to scare me!‘ and this seemed to say more than a hours-long lecture ever could.  ‘Do make it alive and unexpected at every moment’; maybe this was one thing that was meant.

She said once also that dance could evoke ideas, emotions and memories, just like language, and indeed that words could do no more.  There’s a deep truth here, and an indication of the kinship between dance and cinema.  Certain forms of language, poetry above all, are close to dance and music in how they work.

This is a fine documentary and Pina’s choreography, of which we are given many examples, looks a potent and powerful brew.

Cooking With Stella

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Cooking With Stella, Dilip Mehta

Cooking With Stella
Directed by Dilip Mehta
India, 2009
Cornerhouse, 22 April 2011

Still from Cooking With Stella

An irenic comedy that is amiable and friendly, well nigh perfect for a spring afternoon.

It is all about a trickster Indian maid and a Canadian couple who come to stay with her.  She’s a fixture, they’re just passing through.  So she is dependent on short cons, quick return scams, petty theft… that kind of thing.  Her mission is to bleed as much dosh out of them as their gullibility and stupidity will allow, while seeming jolly, cuddly and postcard-ethnic.

All the people are sweet; they smile often and have personalities that are as shiny and smooth as their hair.  Perhaps a pinch of dramatic conflict could have been profitably added.  To taste, you understand.  Or, failing that, characters with a mite more individuality. 

As it is, you wouldn’t miss the last bus home to see this film.  But it could conceivably cure you of a bad temper, or make you forget (temporarily) about a toothache or a missing filling.  These ‘clash of culture’ comedies are good for minor ailments and niggling aches, as is now commonly accepted.

A pleasant, innocuous comedy, but don’t examine its morals and/or subtext too closely.

Midnight Tango

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Flavia Cacace, Midnight Tango

Midnight Tango
The Lowry, 20 April 2011

Credit: Manuel Harlan

What you can expect to see here is a show that is slick, sensuous and often sensational.

On more than one occasion, the men in the audience will find their eyes wandering towards the ladies’ legs, while at the exact same moment the women will want to look at the lady dancers’ shoes.  That’s the difference between the sexes, in a nutshell.

In essence, Midnight Tango uses dance and music – tango, to state the obvious – to tell a story, just as ballet does.  To be sure, it’s rather a rudimentary narrative – to do with passion, infidelity and jealousy, that kind of thing – but it is present nonetheless.

It is the dancing that makes the show, mind, and it stands up all on its own.  Flavia Cacace, as Sofia, is spectacularly sexy.  Perhaps this is not news and I’m stating the obvious once more.  She looks like an athletic, Italianate Louise Brooks.  And her legs have ‘enough melodic line for a tone poem’, in Raymond Chandler’s words.  Or a tango riff.

Midnight Tango is quite different from certain contemporary interpretations of the music (such as Astillero Tango’s take on it) and there’s just a smidgeon of melancholy, a central element of the  traditional tango according to Julio de Caro, but if you approach the show on its own terms – as slick, fast-moving entertainment – then you’ll find much to enjoy.

St. John Passion by Bach

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Bach, Manchester Camerata, St. John Passion, St. Matthew Passion

St. John Passion
By Bach
Manchester Camerata
Bridgewater Hall, 19 April 2011

If you want naked emotion, grievous tears, a refusal of closure: well, all that is to be found in the St John Passion.

This was a compelling performance of the St. John Passion (1724), one of Bach’s great choral works.  A full choir, the St. George’s Singers, and the Manchester Camerata orchestra, complete with two eccentric members of the viol family, the Viola d’Amore and Viola da Gamba, were employed to make vivid and incarnate the final moments of Christ’s life on earth.

It is a fierce piece in many respects, possessing throughout an unassuaged anger, sometimes subdued yet at other times flaring up, as though mourning the death of a dear and very close friend.

There is some justification in saying that the St. Matthew Passion (1727) is the more mature work; there Christ’s death is to a great extent accepted.  The death is an unfortunate necessity, part of the divine plan.  But if you want naked emotion, grievous tears, a refusal of closure: well, all that is to be found in the slightly earlier work.

In brief, there you have the difference between the two.

Little White Lies

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Canet, Guillaume Canet, Les petits mouchoirs, Little White Lies

Little White Lies
(Les petits mouchoirs)
Directed by Guillaume Canet
France, 2010
Cornerhouse, 17 April 2011

Still from Little White Lies

A film about the tentacles that bind together a group of friends, holidaying in the sun as one of their number lies alone in a hospital bed, on the edge of death.

A typically cheery French film then, you might well conclude.

They’re always up to something, these French fellows.  Canet seems to be exploring the notion that cinema (and life too, perhaps) is play, distraction, a series of ephemeral obsessions.  True, our emotions are engaged and we speak of love and hate, and various disappointments and sadnesses, but do these words really mean anything?

There’s a lot of laughter and entertainment to be had from this film, which has a more straightforward (and dare one say it, coherent) narrative than the director’s earlier Tell No One.  Undoubtedly, there’s an underlying seriousness as well, mind.

The people here are reluctant to grow up, they find it difficult to sustain long term relationships, and are easily distracted by mobile phones and other devices.  Maybe they’re spoilt.  Small things irritate them.  They live in a false idyll.

Although Canet has made a comedy, and a very good one, it could just as easily have been a tragedy.  A very funny and moving film.

Meek’s Cutoff

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Kelly Reichardt, Meek's Cutoff

Meek’s Cutoff
Directed by Kelly Reichardt
USA, 2010
Cornerhouse, 17 April 2011

Still from Meeks Cutoff

To call Meek’s Cutoff a Western may be accurate, but it doesn’t quite capture what the film is essentially about.

It is concerned with the stranger, the other, and the extent to which we are able to trust him (or her) and relinquish control of our destiny.  Can we continue to trust and hope, even when faced with a situation of extreme uncertainty and danger?

The time is the 1840s, the place Oregon, and we follow a wagon train of pioneer families as they strike out on their own, making their way into the wilderness.  They are in quest of a new beginning, armed only with guns and a bible or two.  On their way they pick up a native, a stray Indian, and they’re torn between ‘using him’ as they put it, for he seems to know the country, and frankly killing him.  The Indian’s manner and role is perplexing – is he a warrior, a spy or a shaman? –  but he will change these pioneers, for sure.  Indeed, perhaps he is what they’ve been seeking all along.

This is a wonderfully composed, highly literate and intelligent film (dig the allusion to William Faulkner’s ‘The Bear’ early on).  There’s a coda to be found, along the lines of, ‘What do you embrace: chaos and creation or order and destruction?’  And it’s enigmatic ending confers on it the stature of a myth or parable.