“filled with a myriad of physical humour and dramatic scenes”
Lucid is the latest devised performance from ‘New Public’, a physical theatre company consisting of Stephanie Bruckner, Dean Elliott, Tom Kelsey, Jo Moss, and Katariina Tamm. Lucid deals with a plethora of familiar dream related qualities such as counting sheep, sleepwalking, flying, and walking around without trousers.
The performance starts as the well-known voice of Siri offers a staccato description of a dream which quickly turns into a nightmare. The voice warps and fades as the sound of alarm clocks overpower the dream. At this point the feel of the play becomes more obvious to the audience when each performer embodies one of the distinct alarm clock sounds showing a high level of physicality but also a constant undertone of humour.
Once the actors are woken up the story quickly begins weaving in and out of different dreams and dreamlike scenarios using only five chairs to create the set. The movements are masterfully choreographed to bring to life different scenes that are made to retain a dream-like quality via changing levels, speeds and sounds.
The performance is highly physical and leaves the audience awestruck as the actors use each other’s bodies and the five chairs to create an eclectic mix of fights, dances, leaps and acrobatic flips. Like dreams, the different scenes are fast paced and jump straight into the exciting bit whether it be a fight, the chance to fly, or a wedding. The plain set transforms instantly with a simple sound cue, a change in costume, or a difference in body language and the audience is forced to use their imaginations to see a car, a chapel, a dingy street, and various other locations for the different dreams.
One scene that stands out is when Stephanie Bruckner’s character begins sleepwalking and uses the other characters’ bodies to walk to a fridge made up by a simple sheet. Here the characters show off their incredible physical abilities as Bruckner is flipped, spun, thrown, and lifted across the stage all whilst wearing a blindfold.
Although it requires focus to follow along with the story and pick up on the small thought out movements, the play is enjoyable from start to finish and is filled with a myriad of physical humour and dramatic scenes to keep the performance fun but intense, a mix that is rarely as successful as in Lucid.
“a relevant and contemporary narrative that explores consent within a relationship”
The stage is taken up by a sloping double bed, red material snaking up the headboard to weave through the ceiling, clothes strewn, all slightly reflected in the shining black floor. Designer Fin Redshaw punctuates set and costume alike with bright red, a colour that bring out the intensity of the piece and mixes sexuality with foreboding. Michelle Barnette’s debut play is opened by B (Helena Wilson) entering through the audience, staring wide eyed at us as she moves to the stage, ‘Voulez Vous’ emblazoned across her T-shirt.
In B’s flat, A is preparing to leave post sex but when the door gets stuck, the pair are forced to discuss what exactly is going on between them. Interspersed with snapshots of their relationship prior to now, what begins as a conversation about a relationship unearths an ugly and pervasive misogyny. This is a relevant and contemporary narrative that explores consent within a relationship, the silencing of women, and the double standard surrounding sex and gender, that slut-shames women who have lots of sex and deems them “whores”, yet normalises and accepts this behaviour in men.
Helena Wilson is fantastic as B, urgent and warm, rounded and relatable, she comes alive onstage and is impossible to stop watching. Alistair Toovey as A is utterly unlikeable, callous and violent. Gianbruno Spena offers sinister comedy as C, but his characterisation feels the most stylised, the least natural.
What should have been the final scene is incredibly powerful, as B prepares to go out, shaking hand applying lipstick after a scene of near rape and near domestic abuse. This is an image of absolute strength in its vulnerability, reminding the audience how unfortunately normal this kind of narrative is, how many people have experiences like this and are forced to carry on. This should have been a brutally moving final moment.
Unfortunately this is not where the play ends. There is another half hour yet to come of light relief that descends into something more sinister, and a replay of earlier scenes, that seem an unnecessary over-labouring of the point. This second segment of the play does not take us anywhere we had not already arrived at, and does not give the audience and the actor credit for being able to understand and deliver respectively the impact of what has happened to B in her single lingering stare.
This is a compelling and moving piece of theatre with a stunning performance from Helena Wilson, that just didn’t know when to end.
