“an intriguing mix of gifted improvisers and some still learning their craft”
The Free Association Improv Company is well named. Its latest offering, 666 Hell Lane, is an illuminating example of the company’s particular style of work. Staged in the appropriately named Crypt space at the VAULTS, Free Association present sixty minutes of “comedy horror”. The performance style is a low key kind of humour, filled with lots of references to contemporary movies, movie stars, and classic horror genres. But if you’re expecting to be scared out of your seats, or left aching with laughter, 666 Hell Lane will leave you, ultimately, a tad underwhelmed.
There’s still plenty to appreciate in Free Association’s work, however. The company is committed. There are several talented improvisers in the team. So what’s 666, Hell Lane about? On this particular evening, it’s about two start up creators who have lost their way in a forbidding forest in the middle of the night. It’s only a matter of time before they see a light among the trees, and find a creepy hotel presided over by a creepy host. Sound familiar? Yes, said host looks faintly reminiscent of Riff Raff from the Rocky Horror Show. Sadly, there is no Frank ’n Furter to accompany him, but there are a lot of jokes about Rupert Grint. Either the Harry Potter star is a friend of the company, or else he is desperate for some publicity. And some work. But I digress. Seriously, 666 Hell Lane is all about digressions.
So let’s just back up a moment. Why have the heroes of this particular evening’s horror story, Bash and Crash, lost their way? Well, that’s how each Free Association show begins. The audience is asked to provide a question as a jumping off point for the evening’s comedy/horror story. The company take the question, “free associate” from scene to scene, until, eventually, many shaggy dog stories later, some sort of a conclusion is reached. On this particular evening, the audience asked “Why am I here?” It’s a nightmare question, really, and it says much for the performers that they took that on board, in the ironic spirit intended, and ran all over the set with it. A tortuous tale of disappearing diners emerged, complete with bumbling policemen, neighbourhood comedians desperate to deliver punchlines if not narrative coherence, zombies, and “genre hopping.” Every so often the audience would find themselves in yet another narrative space, and the diner would make a shift back to the hotel, or a video rental store, for example. (Do we still have those?) The contemporary culture jokes would then get a work out. Yep, these guys are pretty slick with all their self-referential irony. Hence all the Rupert Grint jokes, one presumes. And for some reason, Cate Blanchett’s Tàr came in for a lot of heavy hitting.
666, Hell Lane is not the worst way to spend 60 minutes, even if trains rumble loudly overhead every so often, and drown out the dialogue. You might miss a few essential plot points in that particular scene, but rest assured that if the cast gets into narrative trouble, there is always another performer waiting in the background to tap a shoulder, and get stuck into taking the story in yet another seemingly random direction. Performers Alex Holland, Graham Dickson, Alison Thea-Skot, Mariam Haque, Kiran Benawra, Luke Healy, Kat Bond and Laura Riseborough are an intriguing mix of gifted improvisers and some still learning their craft. At its best, free association is this company’s super power. But they could still use a more energetic presentation if they wish to use this American performance style and make it their own.
“There’s a lot packed into this sixty five minute show, and it will make you think”
Polish actor Remi Rachuba gives a high octane account of his early experiences teaching English in his one man show Intruder/Intruz. The most important part of this story, however, is not that Rachuba goes to Scotland to be a teacher, but that he wants to come to Scotland to follow his dream of becoming an actor. Such a circuitous route into the acting profession is, as might be expected, fraught with pitfalls. Rachuba, to his credit, manages to present this tale in a way that is by turns, funny, horrifying and ultimately uplifting.
Intruder/Intruz begins, after a comic lesson in Glaswegian slang, with a violent mugging. What follows is a non-linear telling of Rachuba’s attempts to report the crime against him, and participate in restorative justice against his attackers. Switching rapidly between scenes set in Glasgow, Warsaw, and Edinburgh, among others, Rachuba presents us with a play about a man who refuses to be beaten down even when he is being beaten up.
Intruder/Intruz is an unusual piece because it is told in English, Polish and Glaswegian. Rachuba is obviously fluent in all three—no mean feat. This fact is important because Intruder/Intruz is not just a drama about an English teacher struggling to teach in extraordinarily difficult circumstances, and about a series of attacks, both physical and linguistic, upon him. Audiences might be forgiven for thinking that the Intruder in the title is just a reference to Rachuba’s attackers, and the phobias that threaten his psychological well being after the event. But Intruz has another meaning as well. That of the intruder—an unwelcome immigrant—arriving in a foreign land. Intruder/Intruz is an eye opening account of the violence that immigrants have to reckon with, as they move to a different country to pursue a dream. There’s a lot packed into this sixty five minute show, and it will make you think.
Intruder/Intruz is also not the most accessible of shows unless you are, like its creator, fluent in English, Polish and Glaswegian. If you aren’t, quite a few of Rachuba’s words are going to be lost because there are no subtitles to help. It’s hard to tell from moment to moment where you are in time in the story, as Rachuba switches with breath taking speed from present to past and back again. He is an engaging performer, and director Marcus Montgomery Roche makes the most of the space at the Network Theatre. But the threads of Rachuba’s narrative bend and weave until suddenly, without much warning, you’re at the end. The individual scenes in Intruder/Intruz, such in Rachuba’s classroom with his special needs students; his acting audition; his encounter with a student in a Polish casino before an important English test, are memorable—and wryly humorous. These moments of comedy contrast vividly with the violence that is at the heart of this piece. And there are also moments when you wonder how Rachuba could ever summon up the courage to return to the places where he was under such constant attack.
If you’re looking for a solo show that is distinctively different, and you don’t mind a linguistic challenge—you will find Intruder/Intruz well worth your time. It is an energetic show from an actor who left Warsaw and came to Glasgow to realize his dream.
