Poena 5×1 and No Horizon, Edinburgh Festival Fringe

Science and Mathematics. Vaccinations, space travel, electricity. Nuclear weapons, lethal injections, pollution. Poena 5×1 and No Horizon. One is a new play showing the dark potential of science, the other a new musical celebrating overcoming disadvantage through maths. Radically different in style and story, both productions find inspiration in the potential of science, maths and technology, and both need further development.

Scientist Bryony Adams works for the Department of Justice in Poena 5×1. She’s a typical Tory suit who fully believes her horrifying work benefits the greater good – she invented Poena, a drug that reduces prison populations through humane punishment (whatever that is). Named after the minor goddess of punishment, Poena induces a state of despair and hopelessness that can lead to catastrophic mental consequences for the prisoners that are her voluntary test subjects. Bryony becomes emboldened by praise as she further develops the drug, deciding to test it on an unknowing volunteer.

Bryony is a despicable character that Cathy Conneff plays admirably, particularly as she begins to emotionally deteriorate. Considering this is a solo performance with little visual element, her ability to maintain audience focus through compelling embodiment of the character is excellent. The character presents her work to the audience until a twist reveals all is not what it seems. It’s at this point that Abbie Spallen’s script starts to lose its way. As Bryony’s story becomes more personal and less about her work, the narrative becomes knotty and unclear, having a knock-on effect on the script as a whole that until this point, terrifies through the government’s potential to commit heinous acts. Any themes and messages established about the horror of governmental capital punishment are unfortunately diluted. Reworking the ending to maintain character and plot continuity and clarifying the play’s message would take little work but have great effect.

In contrast to Poena 5×1, No Horizon has a solid, consistent script, but this new musical’s shortcomings are its music and the casting of this particular production. The true story of a remarkable young man in the 1680s looks at the power of mathematics to unite people across social class and ability. Nicholas Saunderson, blinded by Smallpox as an infant, learns to read through his friends’ support and tracing letters on gravestones. His envy and frustration grow as his parents enforce limitations on him because of his disability and his best friend in their tiny Yorkshire village goes to Cambridge. Through sheer determination and an innate aptitude for maths and physics, he eventually proves that in a pre-Braille era, disability is still no barrier to success.

It’s a wonderful, uplifting story with a generally good narrative arc, though most of the cast are gifted singers who struggle to match their acting ability to their voices. There is frustratingly little connection between characters, though George Griffiths as Joshua Dunn is a notable exception. The music is rather samey and repetitive without distinction, though there are some standout numbers amongst the Cambridge students. The music is pre-recorded, which makes it even harder to capture any nuance in tone and volume. There is minimal choreography, making the ensemble numbers more choric than musical theatre.

Theatre can be a powerful vehicle for maths and science, but in the cases of No Horizon and Poena 5×1, the subjects are let down a bit. Some tinkering is definitely needed to whip these productions into shape, but there is much potential in these character-driven stories.

Poena 5×1 runs through 29th August, No Horizon runs through 27th August.

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bare., Courtyard Theatre

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Three young women, three short solo performance pieces, three stories of vulnerability make bare., a thematically linked evening of new writing. Each of the three mini-plays has a distinct style and is performed by the writer. They vary in the quality of writing and inventiveness, and feel very new – more like scratch performances rather than finished pieces. bare. is a lovely concept – short, female solo performances that reveal hopes, fears, aspirations and conflict. It could easily become a regular event, giving women the chance to try out one-person work in front of an audience. As is, these pieces certainly need development but the three writer/performers show much promise and commendable initiative that, with development and experience, will certainly improve their work.

Kat Ronson is first, performing ‘IBZ’. This fragmented work follows a young woman’s journey from singledom into a loving relationship. The wild, drug fueled club nights transform into something more gentle and intimate, but her story does not end happily ever after. The young woman’s transformation is lovely, but the choppy writing makes for an unclear narrative and timeline. Ronson uses comedy punch lines and moments of reflective sincerity effectively, but this doesn’t balance out the vague writing. This piece would benefit from dramaturgical support and a hefty re-write, but the concept and central character are certainly workable.

American Steffanie Freedoff shows that yanks can handle their poetry and spoken word with ‘in the beginning there was Word’, a biographical monologue in verse about hating poetry as a teenager and growing to love it as an adult. This is also a coming-of-age story, but a much more positive one on self-discovery and confidence. It’s a bit cheesy and motivational, but the two stand-alone poems she ends on are angry, provocative and polished. The focus is on these pieces, which feel disconnected from the first part of the performance but add variation in style and tone. This second mini-play also needs development and shaping to find its overarching message, but it feels like it could be lengthened without becoming dull.

Madeleine Dunne brings a strong character piece to the trio with ‘Mind the Gap’, a piece that looks at the struggle of overcoming mental health issues. Lucy is a little girl terrified of breaking the rules and a young adult still limited by these fears. Told in two parts, Dunne’s gift for transformation is revealed in these two naturalistic monologues. It’s not clear who she is talking to and why in either section, but the character is a suitably interesting one. Lucy could also work well as the protagonist in a full play with multiple characters, perhaps even better with others to respond to rather than limited in a solo performance.

A quiet, sung finale wraps up the evening, a nice touch that adds some unity to these unrelated plays. bare. still feels like a scratch or showcase with a range in quality, but as a themed performance event, it is poignant and well curated. All three pieces need refining and/or expansion, though each shows at least some element of promise.

bare. runs through 16 July.

Fury, Soho Theatre

Sam is a young, single mum living in a council flat in Peckham. Having gone through the care system and her boyfriend leaving her after her second son was born, she has no one. When she meets socially inept Tom, an MA student in the flatshare above her, after losing her job as a cleaner, he creates an opportunity for friendship, sex and an escape from her kids. But Sam was born a victim, and a victim she remains. In this discourse on social class, parenting and gaslighting, playwright Phoebe Eclair-Powell incorporates Greek tragedy and a commentating chorus to expose the perils of growing up with no support network.

This is one of the young writer’s first full-length plays, and she’s still finding her feet. Fury has a great concept and characters, and the use of the chorus is a fantastic touch that adds depth and structural variation, but the execution if the ideas isn’t quite there yet. Some sections of the script don’t quite fit the main thread, like her beach outing with an old friend, and others rush the narrative progression. The chorus fills in information left out of the scenes, but this sticking plaster over the gaps is still unsatisfying and overly simplistic. The relationship between Sam (Sarah Ridgeway) and Tom (Alex Austin) escalates a bit too quickly to be plausible, though some slight extending would go far to rectify this.

Ridgeway is excellent as Sam, with a nervous energy and a risk of exploding into violence at any point, making Tom’s manipulation all the more believable to social services. Austin is slimy, awkward and initially seems harmless, but quickly reveals a dark interior. Though he plays the role well, it’s a challenging one because he transforms so quickly. His unlikely behaviour after his initial awkwardness is a powerful reminder that anyone is capable of committing horrendous acts, particularly against vulnerable people. The chorus of three (Naana Agyei-Ampadu, Daniel Kendrick and Anita-Joy Uwajeh) also play additional characters, flipping between them and non-characters with ease and agility.

Director Hannah Hauer-King uses a simple set by Anna Reid to focus on the text. Her in the round staging is a great choice that adds to Sam’s rising paranoia – everyone is indeed watching her every move. The chorus uses seats set into the audience, which although it keeps them ever present, it is unclear why the audience/actor boundary is blurred. She occasionally struggles to clarify space what with the mostly bare stage, but the dialogue usually explains well enough. Hauer-King taps into Eclair-Powell’s poetry with instinctual finesse, making some moments particularly moving.

Though the ended is rather different from the Medea that the show’s marketing compares it to, there is still senseless tragedy brought on by a man’s deliberate actions against a vulnerable woman. Fury shows much potential from the emerging writer and director, and contains some vital messages about growing up poor and female that, with some small adjustments, will be heard loud and clear.

Fury runs through 30 July.

The Doctor in Spite of Himself, Drayton Arms Theatre

The Doctor in Spite of Himself (c) Ulysse Beauvois (3)

When the abusive, drunken woodcutter Sganarelle beats his wife one time too many, she takes advantage of passing strangers looking for a doctor to cure a young woman’s mysterious illness. Telling them she knows just the man, an eccentric but renowned man of medicine, sets the ball rolling on an absurd adventure of lust, remorse, and blagging it. Exchange Theatre, a French company based in London, have adapted Moliere’s The Doctor In Spite of Himself into a 75-minute contemporary version loaded with metatheatre, energy and good leading performances from a French cast. Plenty of slapstick, detailed design and Shakespearian influence make this a fun, easy to watch adaptation of the French classic.

Actor-director David Furlong plays Sganarelle with a goofy, watchable charm. His undeniable charisma is at odds with the unlikeable character, though his comeuppance and subsequent reform are a somewhat satisfying narrative despite the anti-feminist premise from the 1660s. Furlong is by far the strongest in the cast, but the others are generally good. Anita Adam Gabay as the mostly mute Lucinda exudes a sweet innocence, particularly in the opening montage where she discovers her betrothal to a man she doesn’t love. Matt Mella is the hilariously dumb Lucas, able to evoke laughter with a well-timed pause and a blank look. Some of the actors find it hard to connect to the language in English at times, but these jarring moments are fairly infrequent.

The edited plot occasionally feels rushed and overly compact, though it’s easy to follow and the translation uses relatively modern English. The excused wife beating is uncomfortably old fashioned, but at least it’s ridiculed – along with medicine and the gullibility of the upper classes. These themes translate fairly well to the modern day and English culture, especially considering the Shakespeare-esque comedy sequences that are likely to have drawn on the same commedia del’arte heritage that Shakespeare did. Furlong updates even further by adding in discreetly funny elements of self-reference, even if they don’t always work. The bust of Moliere as a weapon is cute, but characters dictating text to others from an anthology of Moliere plays isn’t as effective and causes energy to drop.

The design, presumably also by Furlong, incorporates an Elizabethan stage-within-a-stage to emphasise the metatheatre and clarify location. It’s clever and looks great, though it causes some difficulties with sightlines and narrows the playing area. Furlong’s overarching concept of using the metatheatre to create distance is a strong one what with its acknowledgment the absurdity of the story and the plot points that don’t work in a present day context.

This production of The Doctor in Spite of Himself is a funny, palatable adaptation of Moliere for London audiences. It’s a good laugh, a good length and has good performances. The company’s talent and vision is highly commendable and deserving of larger production values; their commitment to bringing audiences high quality French theatre in intimate venues makes them one to watch.

The Doctor in Spite of Himself runs through 17 July with performances in both French and English.

Karagula, Styx

Karagula at The Styx, courtesy of Lara Genovese @ Naiad Photography, Charmaine Wombwell

In a former ambulance depot in Tottenham Hale, Philip Ridley’s latest creation comes to life. This epic parallel world of wholly isolated nation states resembles the worst dystopias imaginable in contemporary fiction. Mareka is a 1950s America with laws enforced to the letter by the Grand Marshall, everyone wears pink, and milkshakes are consumed with religious zeal. Cotna is the future, where people are have numbers instead of names, and watching meteor showers without protective eyewear causes you to hear voices. Then, there’s a community of exiles in the mountains, living in caves, wearing skins, and praying to pre-Christian gods. A storyteller/historian in yet another time and place documents these people and their trials.

These kingdoms have a lot of detail, and a lot of emptiness. The story sprawls over three hours, zipping back and forth across time and place, leaving a swirl of slow understanding, further questions and obvious metaphor in its wake. The text is rich and beautiful, fragmentary and challenging, but it’s only partially reinforced by design. A scaffolding base reveals occasional moments of visual detail, but they generally pale against the language. Karagula is equally marvelous and horrible, an experience for all the senses with stories that enthrall and disturb in equal measure. But Ridley’s Tolkien-esque ambition never reaches its full structural potential.

Individual scenes are just as likely to delight as they are to be forgotten. If Karagula was a tapestry, it would be patchy and moth-eaten in some areas, others would have exquisite embroidery, and still others would be completely plain and ill-fitting. The gaping plot holes leave room for interpretation, but the better scenes feel all the more out of place. Ridley either needs to pare the script right back, or add another couple of hours to join up these worlds more fully. The whole experience is equally delightful and frustrating.

Nine actors play all roles in some exemplary multi-rolling. Producing company PigDog is committed to diversity in casting and audiences, and this cast is admirably so. Obi Abili is a terrifying brutal Grand Marshall in Mareka. Emily Forbes is the fiery leader of the mountain outcasts, initially motherly, then ruthless. Lynette Clarke is similarly versatile, as a flamboyant and vicious Marekan and a cold number in Cotna. None of the ensemble ever let their energy drop; their work is just as fantastic as Ridley’s best scenes.

Director Max Barton approaches the text with clear vision and choices that aid clarity, even in the muddiest sections of text. Designer Shawn Soh has moments of brilliance (beasts with coats of cable ties and a throne of gears and propellers for the narrator are fantastic surprises), but the shoestring budget is noticeable in the inconsistent application of detail.

Despite it’s issues, Karagula packs an emotional punch with social commentary and nihilistic fortune telling. Mareka foreshadows a Trump-led America, and Cotna is a land where technology has ushered in the loss of individualism. There are moments of wonder and horror, and sheer bafflement. Philip Ridley’s vision is commendable, but the execution isn’t quite there, leaving the audience partially sighted. It’s a wondrously alive and human production and like any given human being, it has it its faults and its virtues.

Karagula runs through 9 July.

Human Animals, Royal Court

I adore animals, certainly more than I like humans, and I think I missed my calling to be a zookeeper or conservationist. I can’t bear any depiction of animals being harmed on stage or film; even mentions of animal abuse is hugely upsetting. So, I found Stef Smith’s Human Animals a pretty horrible ordeal. Smith’s frantic, apocalyptic story captures society’s instinctive, “Must. Destroy. Everything.” response to the natural world threatening contemporary human sovereignty. As the government wreaks havoc on the natural world in the name of security, half a dozen civilians have a range of reactions to the animal population’s invasion of their homes. This visceral, destabilising drama blasts the audience with 75 minutes of shocking, reactive action as the infection spreads across species, but with the fast pace and constant suspense, it’s difficult to relate to any of the characters. Canny design avoids much mess and graphic depictions of the described carnage, but the narrated horror is all too easy enough to imagine from most modern nations, and his highly disturbing on several levels.

Lisa (Lisa McGrills) and Jamie (Ashley Zhangazha) are a young couple supposedly very much in love, though lacking chemistry. Lisa doesn’t like animals much, so isn’t fazed when the government starts killing off the wild ones who are trying to invade people’s homes. She’s had enough of birds smashing into her windows and either dying or injuring themselves. Jamie can’t handle the ruthless killing; his collapse is well written and convincingly performed. Lisa’s boss Si (Sargon Yelda) is one of “them”, a vile, slimy little man profiting from the disaster. Young activist Alex (Natalie Dew) has just returned from travelling abroad, but mum Nancy (Stella Gonet) still tries to treat her as a child. There’s a lot of gorgeous intimacy and tension between them, often diffused by their genial family friend John (Ian Gelder), who clashes with Si regularly in the local boozer. Otherwise, there is little contact between these conflicting personalities, but the reactions from each character to the growing destruction are heartfelt and saddening.

Smith’s best writing is her conflict scenes between the characters. The rest certainly isn’t bad at all, but the storyline requires either depicting the violent extermination of animals or copious narration. Her choice is understandable and, though well incorporated into natural dialogue, there’s a lot of describing. The design team (Camilla Clarke, Lizzie Powell and Mark Melville) work with director Hamish Pirie to break up the text effectively, with sound, lighting, projection and jets of paint constantly interrupting and surprising/startling the audience. Being constantly kept on edge for over an hour is exhausting, with the story causing additional trauma. As horrible as it is, the whole effect is intricately constructed and totes a powerful message.

Also of note is the set design. The cast and audience are inside a zoo-style animal enclosure, disempowering the characters and trivialising their problems because the outside world is dominant and ever watching. Though the set does not literally indicate the characters’ world and gives no hints of the government-ordered extermination and arson that they describe, its tranquillity is calmly sinister.

The production elements and dialogue are excellent, through the relentlessness of Human Animals can alienate – but that’s the point. It’s terrible, clever commentary on contemporary environmentalism, fear of social disorder and individuals’ reactions to what is effectively a civil war and its strong effect will be long remembered by this animal lover.

Human Animals runs through 18 June.

Interview: Chris Hislop on Barker’s Gertrude

“It is impossible – now, at this point in the long journey of human culture – to avoid the sense that pain is necessity…that it is integral to the human character both in its inflicting and in its suffering…” – Howard Barker

Howard Barker is no stranger to sex and violence. His 2002 reimagining of Shakespeare’s Hamlet places the prince’s mother and her sexuality centre stage in a divisive interpretation of the character who receives little attention in the original story. Rarely staged (most likely due to its relentless, sexually explicit subject matter), theatre PR Chris Hislop returns to directing with this upcoming production of Gertrude: The Cry at Theatre N16 in Balham. The play has fostered a huge range of opinions regarding its depiction of women, feminism and female sexuality and its director has a lot to say on the matter.

Why does this play need to be staged?

It’s a vital, powerful and fascinating piece that tackles feminism and sexuality from a very different angle. It’s also a wonderful dissection of Hamlet – considering the Shakespeare 400 celebrations, now is a great time to be giving the Prince of Denmark an overhaul. It’s also a largely forgotten and underperformed piece by a difficult and complex writer. We need more plays like this and writers like Barker, and if this production inspires anybody to think differently, I’ve done my job well.

Opposing views say Barker presents women in an empowering or negative light. What approach are you taking, and why?

Both – my favourite thing about this play is how it was written to empower an underwritten female character, and yet does such a piss-poor job of doing so. Or maybe it doesn’t – maybe Barker’s aggressive sexualising of Gertrude and blatant female nudity throughout is his attempt at female empowerment. Either way, he’s not a misogynist. Barker’s obsession with women has translated into some wonderful parts in his shows, and he’s always trying to write pieces that celebrate and empower them, just through a rather perverse lens. I don’t want to circumnavigate that entirely, just sand down some of the sharper corners.

What’s so appealing about the character of Gertrude in Shakespeare and Barker’s scripts?

She’s an utter mess. She doesn’t know what she wants, she doesn’t know how she’ll achieve it, and she’s governed by her wants and desires. She’s an incredibly human, rounded character. She’s a mother and a lover, neither of which are mutually exclusive.

Would you say this is a feminist play? Why/why not?

I struggle with the word “feminism”. Our world is defined by our language, and by defining an issue by a specific gender we’re generating responses that hinder as well as help. We talk about “racism” – defining someone by their race – so why don’t we call it “genderism”?

Anyway, I digress: I think this is a play about women, the role of women, and women’s sexuality – not exclusively, I think it has a lot to say about sex in general, but the fact that it does so from a female perspective is important. You could say that it’s not even really from a female perspective; it’s a script by a man, and it’s being directed by a man, but I find such comments painfully genderist. I wouldn’t expect only women to like Carol Churchill, or only men to like books by Ross Kemp.

So – is it a feminist play? Yes. Do I think that’s important? Not really. Do I think it tackles important issues around sex and gender? Yes. Is that important? 100%.

Gertrude: The Cry opens 12 June.

Schism, Finborough Theatre

Chicago, 1998. Harrison and Katherine are both struggling. Harrison’s wife recently left him and he gave up a challenging career choice for a safer one as a Math teacher. Fourteen-year-old Katherine’s school cannot see past her cerebral palsy, so she’s not allowed to take “normal” classes. Schism begins when both characters reach breaking point: Harrison is mid-suicide attempt when Katherine breaks into his home to appeal for his help to move into his Math class. This initial meeting spawns a twenty-year long relationship between the two, but not a healthy one. Harrison constantly tries to manipulate and control Katherine, who fights for her independence with progressively underhanded methods. Athena Stevens’ script choppily covers the huge time period in sections, addressing several important issues: autonomy within relationships, abuse, life/work balance, failure and aspiration. A play featuring disability that pushes other topics to the forefront, Schism needs more fleshing out but its messages are loud and clear.

Twenty years is a lot of material to fit into a play and at just over an hour, a lot of the plot is left out. There are about four years between each scene, nicely signposted by a current affairs talk radio show, but pivotal transitions are missing. How does their romantic relationship eventually come about? What are the immediate consequences of his awful behaviour? How does her career develop? How did he manage to keep his job after Katherine, in her final year of high school, hang out at his home regularly? These are unanswered, but easily could be by the addition of more scenes. This wouldn’t effect the episodic nature of the script, but would make the story more satisfying. Despite the clunky narrative arc, Stevens’ dialogue still manages to crackle and easily creates tension. There are some great one-liners that spark belly laughs, and moments that are equally horrifying. As set pieces, the scenes are excellent pieces of writing.

Stevens also plays Katherine and displays a clear sense of ownership over the role. Whether or not there are elements of Katherine in her own life, Stevens performance is emotionally genuine and wholly committed. Tim Beckmann gives a nuanced Harrison who transitions from teacher to lover easily, and maintains an undercurrent of desperation. Alex Marker’s domestic design with the ever-present huge, architectural drawings peeking through the windows is a good reflection of the passion that drives both characters, and director Alex Sims displays a good instinct for portraying the journey of a relationship.

Disability issues are ever present and dictate many of Katherine’s choices, but Schism isn’t about her overcoming adversity. It’s part of who she is, but she has other, more pressing problems – university admissions, bidding for work, whether or not to start a family, and civilian objection to her building projects. Harrison does as well, but they are more psychological and harder to resolve. His inability to cope with Katherine’s success in the field where he failed, his inability to have children with his ex-wife and his inability to let Katherine be an independent woman slowly devour him. It’s compelling to witness. In fact, Schism makes more of a statement about feminism within heterosexual relationships than it does about disability awareness, which is hugely refreshing and shows great progress in theatre equality – Katherine’s disability is a part of her, but only a small one compared to her aspirations.

Schism is a provocative relationship drama that certainly resonates despite the holes in the story. This dysfunctional couple can be both delightful and painful to watch, much like anyone in a modern relationship dealing with the other’s baggage. With some further development, Stevens’ play could pack an even heavier punch.

Schism ran through 14 May.

A Nation’s Theatre: Wail and The Beanfield, Battersea Arts Centre

For two months, theatre makers from across the country are coming to London to celebrate the state of British theatre. One of the A Nation’s Theatre venues is Battersea Arts Centre, currently hosting the double bill of Little Bulb’s Wail and Breach Theatre’s The Beanfield. Wail is an exuberant cabaret about whales and human expression; The Beanfield uses multimedia to examine the impact of police violence on peaceful people and the need to fit in. Though different from each other in content and tone, both Little Bulb and Breach play with performance conventions to create innovative new structures that are at the forefront of theatre performance.

WAIL_Little Bulb Theatre

There’s a lot of science in Wail, and a lot of musical instruments. Actor-musicians Clare Beresford and Dominic Conway, performing as themselves, also have boundless enthusiasm and impressive music repertoires. With material ranging from folk to metal, they share their enthusiasm for whales through songs alternating with monologues of scientific facts. Their charisma and cheer keeps these sections engaging, particularly with the addition of audience interaction. Though the overall energy is light and positive, Beresford’s melancholy for never actually seeing a whale in the flesh provides a bit of contrast to the Male Whale Choir, a hilarious whole-audience exploration of whale songs that males use when on the pull in the coastal waters of Madagascar.

There isn’t as much material on the promised exploration of why humans wail, but a song about why they sing songs is a tender, poignant homage to feeling fragile. This fun, frivolous show is light on the gravitas that a bit more time on this topic could bring, but Wail is still a wonderful, joyful piece as is. The symphonic final number is a fantastic climax wrapping up an excellent contribution to A Nation’s Theatre.

The Beanfield_014_please credit Richard Davenport

The Beanfield by Warwick University’s Breach Theatre wowed audiences at Edinburgh last summer, and understandably so. Drawing on the historic clash between new age travelers heading to Stonehenge and police fresh from the miners’ strikes, they add the framing device of a uni reenactment group researching the event in order to recreate it, and a counter narrative of a group of students going to Solstice. It’s a sophisticated script with plenty of absurdity to lighten the bleak depiction of police violence against unarmed civilians, but still serves as a potent reminder that this happens today in the UK and abroad. Part documentary, interview footage with witnesses on both sides is broadcast liberally; even though the inclusion of police is sympathetic, The Beanfield firmly supports the travelers. Rightly so – pregnant women and children were among the 600 or so attacked with truncheons and projectiles by 1000-odd police.

There is no explicit link between the Beanfield story and that of the contemporary, skeptical students at Solstice, but the inclusion of the latter provides some necessary humour. It’s not a needed subplot though, and detracts from the power behind the political statement of the Beanfield standoff. The script is a great collage of experiences past and present, the sweet naivety of students juxtaposing the atrocities that happened at thirty years previously. The Beanfield, a bit less polished than Wail, is still an excellent piece of theatre with some important thoughts on police brutality.

With multimedia at its forefront, The Beanfield captures the rapid-fire sensory bombardment of present day youth and the desire to instigate change as well as fit in with our peers. Wail, mostly analogue and much less angry, implies the importance of conservation and sympathy for all creatures, human and not. Both shows excellently address concerns of people in this country and experiment with performance, fitting contributions to A Nation’s Theatre.

Wail runs until 23 April, The Beanfield until 21 April then touring.

The Rules of Inflation, Theatre N16

I hate balloons. Well, not balloons themselves, but the noise they make when they burst. After more than three years as a children’s entertainer that does balloon modelling, you’d think I’d be used to them, but no – if anything, it’s worse. When I walked into Theatre N16 to discover a floor covered with balloons and four actors gleefully throwing themselves around the space, I nearly left. I’m glad I didn’t though, despite numerous explosions. Rules of Inflation, a new performance art piece by Balloons Theatre, confronts socio-political issues by setting them at a children’s birthday party, complete with a deranged entertainer who demands his audience of four child characters participate in increasingly disturbing activities. Though my immediate violent revulsion towards the balloons and the job I know all too well intensified as time went on, the messages contained therein are cleverly presented. Even though they are not particularly unique to the stage, the kids’ party framework draws attention to how disturbing these global problems are.

From the start, it is clear this is not a normal children’s party. The creepy music, dark lighting and clown in a ripped, dirty costume (a disturbing Joshua Webb) create a distinctly foreboding, horror film-esque atmosphere, along with all those balloons that could burst at any moment. It’s not a unique landscape but it’s highly unsettling, and relentlessly so. As innocent childhood games become not so innocent, it’s a reminder of how seriously little ones take their play. Getting “out” actually makes them feel like they died, or that they’re gagged and bound. It also calls to mind child’s play in war torn countries, where games in a dangerous environment can result in injury, trauma or death, and the way the world’s politicians play at war without experiencing any direct consequences.

Four actors play four children with varying levels of maturity, who are prone to varying levels of exploitation. Clown targets serious and mature Blue (Nastazja Somers), and finally abandons her in a harrowing, violent end. It’s horrific to witness. Yellow (Bryony Cole) and Green (Emily Sitch) are too similar of characters, and Pink (Bj McNeill) also aligns with them. Whilst this could create an effective gang against Blue, who has a wonderfully defiant presence, this opportunity is missed and she is neither particularly isolated or supported by the kids as Clown abuses her. Instead, their youthfulness draws them to the clown, who eventually proclaims a party winner even from their indistinctness. The piece is also a bit too long considering the straightforward format, but more abstract moments help add variation and a break from the relentless violence, abuse and manipulation. The actors’ vocal and physical energy was quite adult at times and would be more potent if the actors consistently kept to obvious depictions of children.

Rules of Inflation may not evoke such a visceral reaction in most people, but it’s aggressive displays of sexual abuse and objectification are still incredibly powerful. The piece needs a few tweaks to enhance its potency and theatricality, but not many. The balloons and kids’ party context can play on a fear of clowns as well, but this live art performance is a potent examination of power and child abuse in its own right.

The Rules of Inflation runs until 24th March.

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