“Overflow has seized the moment, in an abstract, but none the less compelling way, to confront us with some of the most pressing consequences of 2020”
The much delayed London premiere of Overflow has now arrived at Sadlers Wells, and judging by the enthusiastic reaction of the audience, the long wait has been worth it. Billed as a response to “digital technology” and “a growing awareness of the impacts…on our thoughts, behaviour and actions in the world”, Overflow is another striking work by cutting edge choreographer, Alexander Whitley. The production is a contemplation of a world that threatens dystopia. Whitley’s signature choreography appears again as a stark, complicated dance of intersecting bodies and technology divided and united, in light and in darkness. Throughout Overflow, Whitley challenges our senses to distinguish between the two. He and the company—dancers, light and sound artists— all play with optical and auditory illusions that leave our perceptions overstimulated and fragile. And that is the point.
As you might expect, there is nothing restful or soothing in Overflow. The dance is beauty born out of dissonance, and the audience has to deal with all the unsettled and confusing feelings prompted by that. It begins with smoky darkness and a pounding beat. There is something apocalyptic about the music (Rival Consoles, courtesy of Erased Tapes) that will please fans of Ben Frost, best known for his work in the TV series Dark —another work that references dystopia. The dancers (Joshua Attwood, Hannah Ekholm, Tia Hockey, David Ledger, Jack Thomson, and Yu-Hsien Wu) are continually emerging from the gloom and melting into it, accompanied by a confusing mix of otherworldly sounds and distorted conversations. The work of lighting designer Guy Hoare, and the talents of the light installation company Children of the Light, are the energies that illuminate even as they confine. The rest of the team, Luca Biada (creative technology), Ana Rajcevic (biometric face masks and costumes) and dramaturgy by Sasha Milavic Davies, provide the finishing touches that make Overflow a satisfying, if discordant, production.
Don’t miss your chance to see the work of the Alexander Whitley Dance Company. It’s seventy minutes that will, at times, be uncomfortable to engage with—and you might want to think twice if you have problems with flashing lights. Otherwise, hurry on down to Sadler’s Wells and get a head start on the zeitgeist as we emerge from the pandemic. Overflow has seized the moment, in an abstract, but none the less compelling way, to confront us with some of the most pressing consequences of 2020. It is worth the unsettling journey.
“does not lack suspense, or imaginative touches in the staging”
Adapting Joe Simpson’s epic tale of survival on the Peruvian Siula Grande mountain for the theatre is no easy task. But then playwright David Greig, like mountaineer Simpson, is not the kind of man to avoid a challenge just because it’s difficult, or has never been done before. Nevertheless, theatres, like mountains, are well known for the unexpected ways in which they can put obstacles in the paths of even the most gifted. This revival of Greig’s play at the Duke of York’s Theatre in London just misses a chance at greatness.
Greig was invited to produce a play script of Touching the Void after director Tom Morris, inspired by Simpson’s book, and the BAFTA winning film of the same title, wanted to adapt it for the stage. Sensibly opting against a naturalistic interpretation, Greig wrote instead a “mythic reading of a real event”. He changes the sequence of events—beginning instead with an imagined wake for Joe after he has been left for dead on the mountain. Greig also brings on board a new character, Sarah, Joe’s sister, who in reality had died some years before Joe and climbing partner Simon Yates make their climb (Greig obtained Simpson’s permission to write in Sarah). These changes serve as powerful attention getters; Sarah herself becomes an important part of Joe’s fight for survival in the second half of the show. And then there is the non-human force, the Void, which could be interpreted as the mythic antagonist against which Joe and Simon must battle to win the mountain, and live to tell the tale.
Touching the Void does not lack suspense, or imaginative touches in the staging. Watching actors Josh Williams (Joe) and Angus Yellowlees (Simon) climb all over Ti Green’s ingenious set is exciting, though the climbing accolades should probably go to Fiona Hampton (Sarah) when she takes an impromptu climbing lesson by scrambling up a “mountain face” composed entirely of pub tables and chairs haphazardly attached to the wall downstage right. It’s moments like these that emphasise the theatricality of director Tom Morris’ production, but they can only do so much in holding the audience’s attention throughout the entire play.
The choice of venue for this revival reveals the weaknesses in the script. Even with the actual proscenium arch removed, the Duke of York’s is still a problematic space for a play that cries out to be performed, at the very least, on a more flexible stage. Script wise, it’s clever of Greig to use the character of Sarah to propel the drama forward (she is the one that insists her brother cannot be dead, and goes in search of him) but the play still devolves into a belaboured enactment of Joe’s painful struggle back to base camp in the second, with Sarah becoming a product of his fevered imaginings as he hovers between life and death. From a seat in the stalls at the Duke of York’s, it is hard to see Joe in the second half, because he spends so much time flat on the stage floor. Greig’s dramatisation of the Void, a force that cannot be seen even though we see its effects on the characters, is a brilliant touch, but the ethereal nature of its presence makes it an unreliable source for narrative clarification. And finally, it is impossible to avoid the distancing effect that a picture frame stage places upon audiences watching actors come to grips simultaneously with intimate scenes set against vast panoramas.
