Tag Archives: Richard Foreman

Pain(t)
★★★★

New Wimbledon Theatre, Time and Leisure Studio

Pain(t)

Pain(t)

Time & Leisure Studio, New Wimbledon Theatre

Reviewed – 11th March 2019

★★★★

 

“I cannot recommend it enough, although I take no responsibility for your reaction to it”

 

Half way through Patrick Kennedy’s production of “Pain(t)”, a voice-over announces that “we are now reaching the interesting part of the play. Everything up to now has been recognisable”. Oh yeah? From where I’m sitting nothing whatsoever has been familiar so far. Which is the underlying beauty of avant-garde artist Richard Foreman’s work. Since the establishment of his ‘Ontological-Hysteric Theatre’ in New York in 1968, he has produced numerous plays, over the five decades, with perhaps the most experimental and provocative ideas in postmodern theatre. Yet apart from Foreman himself, Patrick Kennedy is the only director to stage his work in the UK.

Which is no easy task. It must be like being abandoned in a chaotic, unfamiliar city with no compass or street signs. Yet Kennedy has somehow paved his own way to present something quite stunningly unforgettable, mesmerising and incomparably bizarre. Just don’t ask me what it’s about. Not because I don’t know (well – in truth I have no idea!) but because, like a surrealist painting, the observer is entitled to take away whatever they want. Any interpretation is seemingly allowed. “Any sentence can mean anything” is a recurring motif that defines the erratic narrative.

However, for those who feel the urge to sniff out a storyline, the scenario seems based on an ancient French fable in which a young woman from the Provinces comes to the big city to try to gain fame as a great artist. Upon meeting the leading paintress of her day, she realises that to replace that talented lady in the public’s eye would not be easy. In this interpretation Rhoda (Emma Gilbey) arrives in Potatoland (yes – you read that correctly) to gain fame by usurping the ruling artist Eleanor (Ivy Lamont). Meanwhile Max (Benjamin Chaffin) is being held sexual prisoner for the two artists’ ravenous delights. This incredibly dedicated and open-minded cast, which also includes Ola Forman and Tommaso Giacomin, have no trouble drawing the audience in, such is the unselfconscious belief in their uninhibited performance.

It is a performance that transfixes throughout; the dramatic equivalent of a dropped jaw. It is part arthouse cinema, part radio play, part installation, part theatre of the absurd, part cartoon, part surrealist and Dadaist art; with echoes of Buñuel and Dali; Lynch and Genet; Beckett and Burroughs. But even curiouser and curiouser. It makes Alice’s adventures seem positively mundane and quotidian.

You will loathe it or love it – it seems impossible to imagine anything in between. I cannot recommend it enough, although I take no responsibility for your reaction to it. But there is no denying the importance of this sort of art form. It makes us look at theatre, and life to some degree, in a different way. But I can’t really describe why. The dictionary definition of ‘indescribable’ is twofold. Traditionally it was a word used for something too unusual or extreme to be adequately described; yet recently it has become a superlative to express sheer excellence. “Pain(t)” is a show that encompasses both definitions.

Indescribable, indescribable – and unmissable.

 

Reviewed by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Alessia Chinazzo

 

New Wimbledon Theatre

Pain(t)

Time & Leisure Studio, New Wimbledon Theatre until 16th March

 

Previously reviewed at this venue:
All Night Long | ★★★ | New Wimbledon Theatre | January 2018
Legally Blonde The Musical | ★★★★ | New Wimbledon Theatre | June 2018
The Secret Letters of Gertie & Hen | | Time and Leisure Studio | October 2018

 

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Elephant Steps – 4 Stars

elephant

Elephant Steps

Arcola Theatre

Reviewed – 20th August 2018

★★★★

“Kennedy has created something quite spectacular. His directorial decisions are often as surreal as the source material.”

 

Grimeborn is the annual East London opera festival which coincides with the world-famous Glyndebourne Festival. Founded by Mehmet Ergen in 2007, the festival held at the Arcola Theatre is considered a dynamic alternative to the traditional ‘summer season’. And, try as you might, I’m pretty sure you can’t get more ‘alternative’ than “Elephant Steps”. Written fifty years ago by Grammy winning and Tony nominated composer Stanley Silverman and American avant garde pioneer Richard Foreman, this show still feels outlandishly experimental.

Aptly subtitled ‘A Fearful Radio Show’, it is like randomly turning the dial of an old transistor radio. An eclectic (aka ‘chaotic’) cruise through a mix of renaissance, ragtime and rock; picking up on its way scraps of madrigal, tribal and incidental; a pinch of electronica and a nod to the Beatles and Bernstein. Oh, and Stockhausen, Kirchner, John Cage and Frank Zappa and… you get the idea.

The plot is as strange as the music. I’m often sceptical about programme notes that try to shape an audience’s interpretation of the show, but in this case, director Patrick Kennedy’s advice is spot on: “don’t try to understand”. At just over an hour long, it is as futile to waste time working out what is going on as it is to attempt to interpret dreams. The trick is to enjoy the limitless possibilities. And with his top-notch cast of eight blending the beauty of opera with the grit of rock, supported by a ten-piece band playing twice that number of instruments; Kennedy has created something quite spectacular. His directorial decisions are often as surreal as the source material. But like the source material, there is no real theme throughout – musically and textually. Without a solid frame, it is all too easy to lose focus, and interest. The score shifts from harmony to discord in a beat; from the relative accessibility of the pop and rock numbers to the atonal dissonance of the more unusual songs. And in between is the whole gamut of modern music.

Perhaps there is too much variety. It is very much a lucky dip, but if you keep turning the radio dial you will undoubtedly come across a station that appeals to your taste. This is a show that is in equal parts genius yet maddening too. It requires a stretch of the imagination but stretches your patience. It is exhilarating and powerful, but underlying it is a whiff of ‘the emperor’s new clothes’ and we occasionally wonder if we are being taken for a ride. Perhaps the cacophony of thoughts it leaves you with is intentional. Whatever the answer, and I suspect there is none, it is a quite unmissable production. Especially as each performance in this all too short run at the Arcola is followed by the chance to meet the composer Stanley Silverman in person.

 

Reviewed by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Alessia Chinazzo 

 


Elephant Steps

Arcola Theatre until 22nd August

 

Related
Other Grimeborn shows reviewed
The Rape of Lucretia | ★★★★ | July 2018
Greek | ★★★★ | August 2018

 

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