The Coronet Theatre Archives - Page 6 of 9

Bells and Spells

The Coronet Theatre

Reviewed – 4th December 2019

★★★★★

“An absolute dream of a show”

I have often thought that the Coronet Theatre in London’s Notting Hill is London’s sister to Peter Brook’s Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord in Paris. With its distressed grandeur and peeling walls it echoes with the ghosts of a lost age of theatre. The over-used modernism ‘shabby chic’ is too twee a description for the Coronet. It is steeped in antiquity and authenticity, each imperfection bearing the beautiful scars of over a hundred years of history. This makes it the perfect setting for Aurélia Thierrée’s new show, “Bells and Spells”. Directed by Victoria Thierrée Chaplin, it returns to the theatre following its work in progress sharing during the Coronet International Festival in 2017.

“Bells and Spells” is a dreamlike odyssey that whisks you through a world that has a mind of its own. It is recommended that you leave your own mind at the door as you enter, and rely on the skewed logic of dreams. That way you’ll accept the absurdity as completely valid. There is no place for reason as Thierrée vanishes into a revolving door or disappears into an armchair. Heads levitate from their bodies; limbs crawl out of paintings. Thierrée is a whisp of beauty as she dances and weaves herself through the fantasy; as light as Aerial. And light-fingered too. The narrative, if one can be perceived, depicts her as an unabashed, incurable kleptomaniac. She steals silverware, ballgowns, exhibits and paintings, and as she does so she steals herself into our hearts.

There is no place for logic, and it dawns on us that the objects seem to want to be stolen, and Thierrée herself is victim to their surreal intentions. They are in control. Furniture moves across the stage, hat stands walk and move with balletic precision, dresses dance, walls open up revealing dancers. It is in the choreography that her circus and dance background truly comes to the fore. From an early start Thierrée was recruited into her parents’ (Victoria and Jean-Baptiste Thierrée) wandering troupe ‘Le Cirque Imaginaire’. One of her early memories is of playing a walking suitcase, soon graduating to a chest of drawers. These debuts obviously informed her future, eclectic career which has covered dance, cabaret, circus, film and magic. In “Bells and Spells”, with dance partner Jaime Martinez, tango merges with ballet to hypnotic effect, and in its dreamlike way the scenery joins in the dance.

An ensemble cast intermittently appear from the wings, like shadows that creep out of the recesses of a hallucinating mind. A pirouetting man in black wears an upturned chair on his head, or another is engulfed in a swathe of fabric to be disgorged in completely different costume. Thierrée herself disappears into thin air from behind a cascading sheet of washing linen. Seamlessly set, props, costume and cast ebb and flow in unison. The show is bookended by a scene in a waiting room. The patients (are they patients? Who are they waiting for?) are silent, and as they slowly leave one by one it is the chairs themselves who chatter like phantom tell-tales.

We wonder if we are about to wake from the mirage of illusive images when the curtain call signals the end of the journey and we are back in our seats. But the spell refuses to be broken. The flaking walls of the auditorium remind us of the old-fashioned authenticity of what we have just seen. We are in the land of smoke and mirrors and sleight of hand. No technical wizardry, just a marriage of the human mind, imagination, spirit and physicality. This is where the true magic of theatre lies.

An absolute dream of a show.

Reviewed by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Richard Haughton

Bells and Spells

The Coronet Theatre until 14th December

Last ten shows reviewed at this venue:

The Lady From The Sea | ★★ | February 2019

The Glass Piano | ★★★★ | April 2019

Remember Me: Homage to Hamlet | ★★ | June 2019

The Decorative Potential Of Blazing Factories (Film) | ★★★ | June 2019

Three Italian Short Stories | ★★★★ | June 2019

Winston Vs Churchill | ★★★★★ | June 2019

Youth Without God | ★★★ | September 2019

Sweet Little Mystery – The Songs Of John Martyn | ★★★★★ | October 2019

A Letter To A Friend In Gaza | ★★★★ | November 2019

Shadows | ★★★★★ | November 2019

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★★★★

“Rather than a piece of theatre, it has more the feel of an art installation that we would like to wander in and out of at leisure”

“A Letter to a Friend in Gaza” ends with the Israeli filmmaker, Amos Gitai, reading a letter written by Albert Camus during the Occupation in 1944. In Camus’ words, the letter (written to a ‘German Friend’ who had had become a Nazi) was intended as a ‘document of the struggle against violence’. Seventy-five years later, recited in Hebrew, the resonance echoes powerfully in Gitai’s innovative production at the Coronet Theatre. Highlighting the Israeli-Palistinian conflict, this multimedia show demonstrates the universality of the struggles, dating back to the Romans and spanning nearly two thousand years.

This is no documentary, though, but a series of snapshots from the heart, caught in music and poetry. Dominated by the writing of Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish it includes the words too of the Israeli S. Yizhar and the Israeli Arab writer Emile Habbi, among others. What the writers share is a fatalistic conviction of how one who has nothing to do with politics can be drawn into it. This production, thankfully, avoids that and concentrates on the emotion rather than drawing us into any political debate.

The poems are read onstage around a table by Clara Khoury, Makram J. Khoury, Yael Abecassis and Amos Gitai himself. Two Palestinians and two Israelis respectively. I say respectively though it is almost impossible to be absolutely sure from the readings – but that is quite possibly the point to be made: that it doesn’t matter – we are essentially all the same anyway. Read in Hebrew and Arabic, the reliance on the projected surtitles diminishes as you become submerged into the rhythm and musicality of the language; complemented beautifully throughout by three musicians who play around, behind and in front of the cast, weaving moments of pure magic between the words.

Alexey Kochetkov’s lonely violin begins the evening. A sparse, yearning sound that builds into a multi-layered conflict of harmonies and glissandos. Bruno Maurice strides the stage, the plaintive notes of the accordion wafting over us in his wake, while Kioomars Musayyebi anchors the sound in the Middle East on the santur – or dulcimer. Individually or collectively, the musical accompaniment is the real heart of the evening. An evening that ultimately feels a touch longer than the ninety minutes running time. Rather than a piece of theatre, it has more the feel of an art installation that we would like to wander in and out of at leisure. The intermittent back projections of news and archive footage were, if not unnecessary, a distraction at times. Yet it was the charisma of the actors and musicians that pulled focus.

You may not come away from this performance enlightened or any the wiser about the conflict, but you are aware that your heart has been spoken to directly. You take away emotions rather than thoughts. Is it a one-state or two-state solution? This show doesn’t offer answers, it is far more universal. It offers reflections. No sides – just mirror images of each other – opposite yet identical.

Reviewed by Jonathan Evans

The Coronet Theatre

Reviewed – 4th December 2019

★★★★★

“An absolute dream of a show”

An absolute dream of a show.

Reviewed by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Richard Haughton

Bells and Spells

The Coronet Theatre until 14th December

Last ten shows reviewed at this venue:

The Coronet Theatre

Reviewed – 19th November 2019

★★★★

“Rather than a piece of theatre, it has more the feel of an art installation that we would like to wander in and out of at leisure”

Reviewed by Jonathan Evans

A Letter to a Friend in Gaza

The Coronet Theatre until 23rd November

Last ten shows reviewed at this venue: