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Showing posts with label bebe sanders. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bebe sanders. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 25, 2017
Wednesday, October 25, 2017
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Elton John's 1972 hit Rocket Man delivers a great parenting tip: "… Mars ain't the kind of place to raise your kids / In fact it's cold as hell / And there's no one there to raise them if you did". All current scientific data concurs: you absolutely wouldn't want to raise children on Mars, or for that matter, any other distant, spinning, barren ball of rock and sand.
Lidless Theatre's Pebbles grabs this baton and runs with it, using outer space as a metaphor for isolation, loneliness and self-loathing. Our hero is Jonie (Babe Sanders, also writing), who suffers from a mysterious illness that has resulted in her being exiled on a distant planet. We meet her on day 181, busily searching for a communications satellite that will let her order supplies and speak with her family. Things are looking pretty dire: she's having to restrict herself to one square of bog roll per bathroom visit.
The entire point of her being here is that she's isolated. This makes the sudden appearance of Bryon (Charlotte Beaumont) somewhat surprising. While Jonie is methodical and efficient, Bryon is chaotic and constantly verbally and physically dicking around. She very quickly gets on Jonie's nerves. But then, she could help her in her search...
What follows is an extremely funny, touching and concise piece of theatre. Sanders' script is polished to a mirror sheen, bundling up a load of complex emotions, a successful metaphor and a decent dollop of (clearly well-researched) science fiction. Jonie is a relatable, three-dimensional character and charismatic, albeit in a somewhat detached manner. In what might be the most impressive move, Bryon manages to be exceeding annoying to Jonie without actually being annoying to the audience. A lot of that is due to Beaumont's excellent performance, but the finely judged writing doesn't exactly hurt.
The solitary fly in this ointment is the opening scene delivered in pitch black via voiceover. It sort of establishes Jonie's disease, but not really, and in fact feels like a completely separate piece of writing appended onto the front of Pebbles. It also feels incredibly reminiscent of sketches in Chris Morris' Blue Jam. That's one of my favourite things ever, so I'm not exactly moaning, but any information it contains can be inferred from what follows and it probably doesn't need to be there.
Buoying up all this is note-perfect stage design from Kitty Hinchcliffe. Effectively minimalist, the set consists of a sea of white pebbles, with two large rocks in the middle. It's simple but perfectly executed, feeling like one of those designs that's going to stick in the mind for while. Costumes are similarly great: uncluttered white space suits that suggest functionality rather than get bogged down in detailing.
Pebbles is the inaugural show for the Katzpace, which is nestled underneath one of my favourite London bars, Katzenjammers. It's a great show to launch this new space and I wholeheartedly recommend checking it out. I hope to return to the Katzpace soon. I'm also signed the fuck up for whatever Bebe Sanders does next.
Pebbles is at the Katzpace Sunday 22 October – Wednesday 25 October 7.30pm plus 2.30pm (Wednesday). Tickets here.
Photographs by Gregory Hicks.
Photographs by Gregory Hicks.
Friday, January 29, 2016
Friday, January 29, 2016
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When I first arrived in London, sparkly eyed, bushy tailed and fresh faced, I thought of the the tube was impossibly romantic. The very names of stations were pregnant with possibility; after all who knew what wonders took place like at mysteriously named places like Seven Sisters, Temple or Elephant and Castle?
On top of that is the pleasant, reassuring clunkiness of the thing; all snapping doors, robo-voiced announcements and that whoosh of ozone-tinged air as a train rushes out from the inky blackness beyond the platform.
A week of commuting on the Circle Line soon got rid of that sense of wonder; it's difficult summon that sense of metropolitan grandeur when you're desperately trying to maneuver your face out of a sweaty banker's armpit.
Isla van Tricht's Underground sets out to restore that mystery, exploring the tubeas a place hermetically sealed away from the outside world, where human relationships twist and warp, time stretches and the world becomes just a little softer.
Set in a faraway future where TFL have resolved their dispute with the drivers and the night tube is up and running, the play is set somewhere on the Northern Line near Kennington, where Claire (Bebe Sanders) and James (Michael Jinks) are returning from a reasonably successful online date.
Then the train judders to a halt. Minutes pass with no explanation, until an apologetic announcement that the train has broken down and maintenance staff are being dispatched. Claire and James are stuck underground, their only company each other and an obliviously snoozing fellow passenger (Adrian Wheeler). As minutes turn into hours, the two conversationally dance around one another, mutual attraction blooming. But the longer they stay here, the more surreal the tannoy announcements get. Just how long will they be trapped?
Modest, modern and perceptive, van Tricht displays a firm grasp of both contemporary relationships and the Greater London public transport network. As the play unfolds, the two pleasingly dovetail together. Underground's dating world is one of Tindr and Happn, each indispensible to the urban dater. Spotting someone you like the look of in a bar and striking up a conversation is a bit passe these days - far better to coolly sit in judgment behind your smartphone and swipe left and right.
Similarly, the tube network treats human beings as bytes to be efficiently shuffled down a series of pipes to their destinations. Once you press your Oyster card through the barrier, you become a blip on TFL's system, tracked around the network. The two systems share a preoccupation with cleanly digitally processing analogue humanity. So, by trapping a couple together in this system, Underground gently critiques the sleek ease of modern dating by creating a situation in which no-one can casually swipe someone into the abyss.
While this all rumbles away in the background, the foreground is taken up with a very well-written romance. From moment one, Wheeler and Sanders demonstrate an enviable romantic chemistry. Wheeler accentuates awkwardness and fake bravado, unsure of how much of himself to reveal, while Sanders hides behind a sarcastic and spikiness. Both characters are eminently likeable and believable - whether they're casually smoking outside a crowded bar or ravenously ripping each other's clothes off in an erotic muddle.
Frankly it's straightforwardly nice to see an on-stage romance that works. Mutual attraction is a difficult thing to convey in performance and writing without the billowing whiff of cheese, so full credit to all involved.
Matters are helped by the smart decision to exploit the atmosphere in the Leake Street tunnels. We're ensconced underneath Waterloo station and the ceiling is periodically shaken by the doomy knocking of trains overhead. I've seen a lot of shows here and this can be distracting, but in Underground it creates a distinctly subterranean London Underground vibe that'd be hard to create anywhere else.
The only place things come a little unstuck are the more surreal segues. Sleep-deprived and disorientated, the tannoy announcements descend into a mix of free-wheeling poetry and snatches of overheard conversations. The sleeping man in the corner of the train proves to be an agitator of the fourth wall, adding a weird metafictional element to proceedings. I don't think Underground needs these distractions, at any rate, neither I nor my plus one could work out what they were trying to communicate.
At just an hour long, Underground is an eminently breezy experience, speckled with beautifully observed and played fragments of human interaction. It's got obvious heart, brains to back it up and captures that elusive, easily forgotten thrill of romance underground.
Swipe right.
★★★★
Underground is at Vault Festival:
Performances: 27th - 31st January 2016
Wednesday - Sunday, 18.00, + Saturday matinee, 14.30
Tickets: £12
For full programme and ticket information, visit vaultfestival.com
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