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Kissing Rebellion

Ovalhouse

Reviewed – 18th November 2019

★★★★★

“a very special piece of theatre”

“Il va falloir beaucoup, beaucoup, beaucoup d’amour” (It’s going to take a lot, a lot, a lot of love) was social media’s flag of support after the 2015 Paris attacks. It also became the inspiration for Abigail Boucher and Carolyn Defrin’s exploration into the culture, thrill, heartache and compassion of kissing. Over three years, they hosted dinner parties in London, Paris, Chicago and Los Angeles and audio-recorded their guests’ recollections and dreams which started with a kiss. These fragments of lives and sentiments are interpreted through dance, music and illumination in a series of beautifully staged artworks, some melancholic, some funny, but always poignant.

As part of Ovalhouse’s ‘Demolition Party’ Season, before it moves to its new venue, the theatre is allowing final productions to dismantle sections of the building. Connor Bowmott’s tastefully bleak and stripped-down set gives the cast a striking and versatile space to use, its gaping, excavated cavity in the centre of the stage an echo of Paris and a symbol of the damage life can throw at us. With sublimely imaginative lighting by Joe Hornsby and immaculate sound design (Mikhail Fiksel), Boucher and Defrin’s direction creates a series of imaginative and elegantly structured vignettes reflecting the infinite and unique stories which stretch relationships, sensations, time and place.

After chatting cheerfully around the dinner table, recalling and revealing individual anecdotes, the eight contrasting performers use movement, spoken dialogue and song, interlaced with the original recordings. Each brings a distinctive quality to the collective, combining in pairs and groups to transmit a selection of the myriad experiences and feelings in these conversations. Movement Director, Matthew Rawcliffe, skilfully manages to make moments stand still while in motion and to flow from one scene to another. As the memories and secrets unfold, so do the kisses. There is the wish kiss, the shower kiss, the kiss of success, the comfort kiss, the maternal kiss, the lost kiss and the kiss to say hello, goodbye or farewell; we are drawn effortlessly from one to the other.

Although ‘Kissing Rebellion’ was developed against a backdrop of global crisis, that intention does comes across less powerfully than the idea of personal calamity or intimacy. What is stunning in this production, however, is the deep sincerity of the recordings, the poise and self-possession of the performers and the immaculate creativity as an ensemble. This is a very special piece of theatre; it is as if one is walking timelessly around an art gallery, pausing to take in a character or scene and moved by an expression or connection. And as we leave, we are stirred with the reminiscences and emotions of our own kisses.

Reviewed by Joanna Hetherington

Photography by Rosie Powell

Kissing Rebellion

Ovalhouse until 30th November

Last ten shows reviewed at this venue:

Medea Electronica | ★★★ | January 2018

Random Selfies | ★★★ | March 2018

This Restless State | ★★★ | March 2018

Standard:Elite | ★★★★★ | May 2018

Austerity & Me | ★★★★ | June 2018

The Croydon Avengers | ★★★ | June 2018

A Pocketful of Bread | ★★★ | September 2018

Rejoicing At Her Wondrous Vulva The Young Woman Applauded Herself | ★★★★★ | May 2019

Click here to see our most recent reviews

★★

“Structurally, the show was rather like an album, comprised of different tracks, but, aside from the closing piece, they all sounded pretty much the same”

Grey is an intensely personal show. Written by Koko Brown, who is also one of the two performers, it is an autobiographical account of her own struggles with depression. It is honest, and it is real, and Koko herself radiates warmth, strength, fragility and creativity. To sit in the audience with a notebook and pen felt intrusive, as if I was being asked to critique her pain. So, to be clear: it is the artistic shaping of that pain that is being written about here. Nothing can take away from the truth and validity of Koko Brown’s lived experience.

The show has a simple format. Koko shares the stage with another performer, Sapphire Joy, who interprets – through a mixture of sign language and signifying gesture – what she is saying. Or at least, sometimes that’s what she does. Sapphire busts out of her interpreter role on occasion, to directly challenge or confront Koko’s narrative, though still remaining in the realm of sign and gesture. Sapphire also signs the music. Koko mixes live beats throughout, using her loop station, and frequently sings over the top, and one of the real pleasures of this piece was watching Sapphire Joy physically embody those sounds. Fantastic work, and another instance in which Shelley Maxwell’s superb movement direction shines.

The integration of a signing performer into the work felt exciting, and provided some welcome moments of theatre, especially when the two women interacted, although there were also a few sections of unspoken dialogue which were unclear to the audience, and which, judging by the animation of the performers, it seemed a shame to be missing out on. There was also a terrific section towards the end of the show in which the poetry rose up out of the narrative and Koko then opened her voice into a great howl of pain, triumph and pure being. Unfortunately, these moments were little and late.

Making a perfomance piece about depression is always going to be problematic, as it is a condition of repetitive stasis, which is inherently undramatic; this conundrum wasn’t resolved here, and the show lacked pace and tonal variety. The enforced gaiety which is clearly exhausting for the sufferer, was equally exhausting for the audience, and went on for far too long. Also, the theatrical elements in the staging – giant hanging origami birds, for example – seemed completely arbitrary. Structurally, the show was rather like an album, comprised of different tracks, but, aside from the closing piece, they all sounded pretty much the same.

Reviewed by Rebecca Crankshaw

Photography by Mariana Feijó

Ovalhouse

Reviewed – 18th November 2019

★★★★★

“a very special piece of theatre”

Reviewed by Joanna Hetherington

Photography by Rosie Powell

Kissing Rebellion

Ovalhouse until 30th November

Last ten shows reviewed at this venue:

Ovalhouse

Reviewed – 2nd July 2019

★★

“Structurally, the show was rather like an album, comprised of different tracks, but, aside from the closing piece, they all sounded pretty much the same”

Reviewed by Rebecca Crankshaw

Photography by Mariana Feijó

Grey

Ovalhouse until 13th July

Previously reviewed at this venue: