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To Move in Time

The Yard Theatre

Reviewed – 12th February 2019

★★½

“the effect is ultimately hypnotic rather than captivating”

To Move in Time is first on the bill for week five of Now 19, The Yard’s yearly festival in which it invites ten contemporary theatre makers at the top of their game to perform. The Yard is a theatre that, rightly, has a reputation for supporting new work and giving makers a platform to experiment and expose new stories and ways of telling them; a reputation matched by Tim Etchells and his collaborative team of thirty years standing, Forced Entertainment, in whose crucible To Move in Time was forged.

The piece was created with and for the performer Tyrone Huggins, and is an hour long monologue exploring the possibilities of time travel. We are invited to join Huggins in his mental wanderings as he repeatedly muses, ‘If I could travel in time….’. It’s a simple premise, in which theatre is stripped back to its story-telling core, and as such invites the audience to really focus on the words. This is a big ask, in a world of continual visual stimulation, and a necessary one too. But in order for it to work – for an audience to be held captivated for a full hour – both the tale and its teller need to be exceptionally bewitching. Unfortunately, both fell somewhat short on this occasion.

Tim Etchell’s monologue roots itself in our shared consciousness. When presented with time travel as a hypothetical option, most of us will have had similar ideas: of correcting historical mistakes – from remembering to press Save on the computer, to preventing the birth of Stalin; of playing practical jokes on our friends; of getting rich quick by placing bets on known outcomes. This familiarity, which is initially engaging, begins to lose its grip relatively quickly however, and the power of the words is reduced, giving the performance the status of an endless, slightly exhausting anecdote.

Similarly, Tyrone Huggins has a personable quality in performance, and a lovely speaking voice – gentle and mellow – but his tone is so even throughout, that the effect is ultimately hypnotic rather than captivating. There are moments of poetry – ‘If I could dissolve metal with my tears’ – but these are sadly few and far between, and, although the final few seconds have discernible magic, it feels too little too late.

Reviewed by Rebecca Crankshaw

Photography by Maurizio Martorana

To Move in Time

The Yard Theatre until 16th February as part of Now 19 Festival

Last ten shows reviewed at this venue:

A Kettle of Fish | ★★★ | September 2018

Super Duper Close Up | ★★★★★ | November 2018

24 Italian Songs and Arias | ★★★★★ | January 2019

Call it a Day | ★★★ | January 2019

Hotter Than A Pan | ★★★★ | January 2019

Plastic Soul | ★★★★ | January 2019

Cuteness Forensics | ★★½ | February 2019

Ways To Submit | ★★★★ | February 2019

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★★★★★

“a work which touches the soul”

A Sea of Troubles is directed, written and performed by Peter McMaster, with choreographic and dramaturgical support from Louise Ahl. It is a work which defies categorisation, and is all the stronger for it. McMaster and Ahl have created a world which slips and shifts, expands and diminishes like the intake and exhalation of breath, and with the expansive logic of a dream. We see what McMaster shows us, on this blank stage, whether it is the men he so powerfully describes, dancing or moving together in performance, or intimate scenes from his own life. And, like a drawing in which everything is described with a single line, or a sculpture in which space itself becomes a part of the object, A Sea of Troubles is a work which makes us pay attention to what exists in the gaps – between words as we say them and what they describe; between being and performative being; between what is and what seems.

McMaster takes us with him on an exploration of what it is to be a man, a father, an artist, and simply a human being, and reminds us of the fragility of ourselves, created as we are in large part by language and memory. He moves beautifully, sometimes with lightness, sometimes filled with almost unbearable weight, but each gesture and shape is imbued with meaning and purpose. His body always has a seriousness of intent, which holds him to this earth, in a way that language cannot.

There are some lovely funny moments in the piece – moments of direct childhood memory which hit the chime of personal recollection for the audience – but ultimately it is as its best when it embraces its own emotional intensity. At these moments, it is a work which touches the soul.

Reviewed by Rebecca Crankshaw

Photography by Maurizio Martorana