Tag Archives: Haylin Cai

Rainer

★★★★★

Arcola Theatre

Rainer

Rainer

Arcola Theatre

Reviewed – 4th October 2021

★★★★★

 

“‘Rainer’ is a show that is as entertaining as it is eye opening. Impossible to ignore”

 

Who is ‘Rainer’? It’s a good question. Rainer probably isn’t sure of the answer herself. Maybe she doesn’t want the true answer. Initially, we certainly don’t, as she struts and frets on and off the stage. She is the girl for whom you quicken your step as she reels towards you from across the street, showering you with a constant stream of anguished, angular syllables. Or she’s the unhinged untouchable who pins you to the doorway at a party as you’re trying to leave. You think her tirade is coming to its end when the staccato ‘anyway’ steers it into another direction. The acoustics aren’t so good, so you don’t catch a lot of her words. Your attention drifts, returning in unwanted waves. You can smell danger, but it’s an undercurrent. Your impatience is stronger, willing you to walk away. You don’t really care what she has to say – it has turned into background noise.

Sorcha Kennedy is ‘Rainer’, the eponymous character of the one woman show, running as part of the Arcola festival of outdoor art and performance: ‘Today I’m Wiser’. The hard wooden seating and creeping autumnal cold don’t help much. You feel a bit like an eavesdropper to the event.

But then something clicks into place. It is a quite beautiful moment and one of the truest theatrical experiences. You kick yourself for being so indifferent. So ignorant. Kennedy’s ‘Rainer’ is an astonishing portrayal of an invisible character that we see every day. Her depiction is increasingly spellbinding as she unleashes the issues of mental illness that we normally try to avoid. It shakes us up. Yes, we are all guilty of switching off. Of crossing the road to the other side. This play makes us realise we are the problem, and when we realise this, we listen harder, and we are fascinated. And we care. For we now see the multiple layers beneath problems we normally view through squinted eyes.

You will be gripped by this short piece. Kennedy works hard to grab our attention and once she has it, she won’t let go. We follow her solitary journey across London, weaving through the suburbs, the flats, the clubs, and galleries; ricocheting off characters she derides and envies in equal measure. We follow her down the rabbit hole until she reaches lower than rock bottom. Reality slips and it is difficult to differentiate hallucination from fact. “He was never here. Nor was I” she exclaims with a silent question mark, referring to Jack, her lover and saviour. She’s a Scorsese subversive, yet aching to find reason in the shattered looking glass she has climbed through.

Max Wilkinson’s writing is sharp enough to cut Rainer’s wrists, but Nico Pimpare’s dynamic direction pulls the piece back from tragedy and we are ultimately left with an overriding feeling of hope. It has been a thrilling journey, spurred on by Johanna Burnhearts live musical accompaniment. The breakdown becomes a celebration. The unseen becomes seen. This show, intentionally or not, does more for mental health awareness than a month of seminars could achieve. It is illuminating, and essentially it is a confounding performance. Expectations start low, but Kennedy lifts them sky-high. Rainer is a character that refuses to be ignored. She is also out there on our streets, perhaps a less persuasive or noticeable version. But let’s try not to ignore the real Rainer too.

‘Rainer’ is a show that is as entertaining as it is eye opening. Impossible to ignore.

 

Reviewed by Jonathan Evans

 


Rainer

Arcola Theatre until 9th October

 

Previously reviewed at this venue this year:
The Game Of Love And Chance | ★★★★ | July 2021
The Narcissist | ★★★ | July 2021

 

 

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Imaginarium

Imaginarium

★★★

Online

Imaginarium

Imaginarium

Online via Applecart Arts until 23rd October

Reviewed – 15th October 2020

★★★

 

“The audience is the performance. The bedroom, the stage”

 

Through the back weeks of October, Applecart Arts present the Dazed New World Festival – an online only showcase of new narrative forms which explore a range of social and environmental issues; all against the backdrop of “the new normal” of life within a pandemic.

Running for three shows; Imaginarium is the debut production of Out of the Blue Theatre. The show is inspired by the social seclusion of Lockdown and uses audience members’ bedrooms as the stage for a guided exploration of space and the possibilities of imagination. Like the rest of Dazed New World Festival, Imaginarium is “Livestreamed” through Vimeo, accessible only at ticketed times. The term “Livestream” here, being a slight misnomer for what appears to be pre-recorded content.

The content and form raise interesting questions for theatregoers and academics alike. Theatre & performance is a couplet term for a collection of ever-evolving, ever-flexible art forms that intrinsically reflect societies norms and mores. That they should migrate online, seems an increasingly appropriate development. However, one metric used to delineate theatre from its innumerate modern cousins is the concept of liveness- Things that happen at a certain moment and only thern. How Imaginarium deals with this concept seemed to be the foundation of which the show’s success rested.

Director Haylin Cai tackles the problem of liveness through the imagination and physical body of each participant. The audience is the performance. The bedroom, the stage. We are asked to position ourselves in our room; to have a glass of water to hand, and to use headphones. Voice Actor, Harry Dean then takes control and begins to lead us on a journey…

First, the context of the performance is set- We spend too much time online with other people’s opinion swirling through our underused and under-explored minds. We are then invited to imagine our bedroom anew; we are told that the everyday objects around us can now be explored with fresh eyes. We are encouraged to create a new language for them, to talk to them and to explore how they might feel and relate to one another. In other words, we are live and active participants on our solitary stage. Later, we are asked to imagine ourselves as supple 8-year olds playing hide and seek within the space. It’s within these moments that the show lives up to the billing of creating a live performance based on imagination.

Moments of participation are however, interspersed with Dean taking us on a variety of journeys through time, space and imagination, aided always by confident and apt sound design of Tingying Dong. We are in one moment holding our glass of water, the next imagining the journey of that water through the vast annuls of space and time. It is in these moments when the shows liveness unfortunately disappears, and the “performance” takes on the guise of a form of guided meditation or audio book and sadly things fall slightly flat.

2020 is an exciting and testing time for theatre makers to represent. Out of the Blue’s debut production confidently meets these challenges head on with an audio journey filled with imagination and play. I’m excited to explore more of Dazed New World Festival and look forward to more of Out of the Blue theatre.

Reviewed by Euan Vincent

Main image courtesy Out of The Blue Theatre Company – this is a rehearsal image of actor Harry Dean, director Haylin Cai and sound designer Tingying Dong

 

Imaginarium

Imaginarium

Online via Applecart Arts until 23rd October

 

Previously reviewed by Euan:
The Glass Will Shatter | ★★★★ | Omnibus Theatre | January 2020
Aamira And Gad | ★★★★★ | The Vaults | February 2020
Blitz! | ★★★ | Union Theatre | February 2020
The Incident Room | ★★★★ | New Diorama Theatre | February 2020
Woyzeck | ★★★ | Theatro Technis | September 2020

 

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