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Showing posts with label chris lince. Show all posts
Showing posts with label chris lince. Show all posts
Saturday, October 19, 2019
Saturday, October 19, 2019
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Spend too long thinking about memory and you'll go crazy. Your past experiences are the foundation of 'you' - all the places you've been, the choices you made and the interactions you had.
But while we have only the faintest idea of how memory works on a neurological level - we know for certain that it's unreliable. You can quite easily be coached into creating false memories and the mind is eager to edit out unpleasantness it would rather not have to deal with. Then there are the many medical conditions that can dramatically affect your memories. Hell, falling off your bike and bonking your head in just the right way can irrevocably change who you are.
Suddenly the foundation on which 'you' stand feels unstable...
This is the existential horror fuelling Hermetic Arts' Anthology, an hour-long show comprising three short stories, written and directed by Chris Lincé and performed by Carrie Thompson (who, for the sake of full disclosure, I know quite well). I had high hopes for the show, having adored their previous shows Unburied and April.
First up is 'Special Sounds', in which we see a typist trapped in a time loop by a sinister tape machine. Next is Wholesale, a Philip K. Dick inspired marketing spiel in which a Silicon Valley wunderkind demonstrates sinister memory-editing technology. Finally, there's The Empty Clock, about a relationship apparently built entirely around forming precious memories with a sinister twist in the tail.
All three explore our interactions with and perceptions of memory. There's the unsettling inertia that comes from watching your life drip away, day by day, in menial drudgery. It's the kind of fear that sees you begin a job as 'the new kid' with big ideas. You blink and look up to find a hollow-eyed, grey-haired reflection in your computer monitor and realise that this is it for you.
It digs deep into the disturbing feeling that comes from piecing through your most treasured memories and realising that reality may differ from your recollections. Was your childhood really a long golden afternoon or was there something awful bristling just under the skin? How much have you been prodded and cajoled into remembering things a certain way: was that your life or the Disney adaptation of it?
Finally, it touches on the way we intentionally curate our experiences for the future, like a squirrel carefully collecting acorns for the winter. Why do we obsessively catalogue our happiness in photographs and videos: is it to give us something to jog our memories or an attempt to prove to ourselves that we're achieving the happiness we goddamn deserve?
All this is communicated through concise and vivid writing that's honestly a little nauseating in how casually good it is. Lincé has an iron grip on pacing and tone, gradually dialling up the tension in each story as we understand what's really happening. This is best demonstrated in Wholesale, where you generally figure out what's about to happen a few seconds before it does. This is rewarding storytelling: respecting the audience's intelligence, invisibly delivering exposition and easily holding everyone's attention. You can hear a pin drop at some of the tenser moments.
Anthology would be good if it were simply a script, but Thompson's delivery elevates it to true excellence. One mark of confident horror is not being afraid to throw a few jokes into the mix, and Thompson makes being funny, entertaining and personable look effortless. Her mime skills during the first story create a complete character simply through body language and facial expressions. Then there's the ability to turn on a dime, moving from chirpy sales pitch to deep creepiness like flicking on and off a light switch.
On top of all that, Anthology is also a deeply impressive bit of stagecraft. Obvious care and attention has been paid to each individual soundscape, as well as a carefully choreographed lighting design that's executed with pinpoint accuracy. On paper Anthology might sound like a simple show: one performer telling three short stories. In practice, it's polished to the point that its simplicity feels weaponised. You cannot look away and there is nowhere to hide
Beyond all that, there's the simple fact that Anthology is genuinely scary. Despite having reviewed a bunch of stuff at the London Horror Festival over the years, most 'horror' plays present their scary elements with a nod and a wink. That's probably because scaring an audience is hard and sincerely trying and failing makes you look silly. But Anthology's full-throated existential horror gives you the chills in a way someone jumping out and yelling 'boo' never could.
Anthology promise "an evening to remember". It is.
Anthology is next at the Brighton Horrorfest on 26th October. Tickets here.
Thursday, February 21, 2019
Thursday, February 21, 2019
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Carrie Marx kicks ass. Over the years I've seen her both perform in and devise a whole bunch of great theatre, from Death Ship 666 way back in 2013, the epic Cosmic Trigger and last year's incredibly cool and spooky Unburied. She has a fantastic stage presence, has a rare understanding of horror and is super into arcane countercultural philosophy.
Reviewing April is a tricky proposition as there is a big change of mood at one point. I can't not write about it, but if you want to go in blind (which I very much recommend) just be assured that it's amazing and read the rest of the review later.
Anyway, for the most part April behaves like a comedy show, poking fun at egocentric self-help gurus and teeth-grindingly annoying positive thinking vloggers. But these laughs are the velvet sheath around a particularly jagged and nasty blade. Marx is an expert in horror, but despite laughing more during this show than I do at most comedies, April is easily the scariest show I've seen since uh, Unburied.
Anyway, for the most part April behaves like a comedy show, poking fun at egocentric self-help gurus and teeth-grindingly annoying positive thinking vloggers. But these laughs are the velvet sheath around a particularly jagged and nasty blade. Marx is an expert in horror, but despite laughing more during this show than I do at most comedies, April is easily the scariest show I've seen since uh, Unburied.
April would be great even if it was just what it bills itself as. Marx somehow both satirises and makes a decent case for the power of 'positive thinking', smartly weaving fuzzy mainstream self-help techniques with punk occultism. This is carried forward in her demeanour and aesthetic: the blindingly white dress, jet-black wig and beatific smile making her look half Goop aficionado and half cult leader.
Part of the show consists of the audience writing down their problems and putting them into a box, with random ones being drawn out and 'solved' by April. Somewhat predictably mine was one of the ones picked (I dunno why I keep ending up on the stage of shows I'm reviewing but hey-o), so I ended up standing opposite her gazing into her bottomless eyes. I felt like a deer staring down an 18-wheeler as she interrogated me, a process which ending with her angrily ordering me out of the room (fortunately I was allowed back in).
Then there's the jaw-dropping video sequence in which she talks about God's position on unbelievers. This is a five-minute monologue performed (as far as I could tell) without blinking in which April tells an increasingly nightmarish and surreal story about how God deals with non-believers. It contains some truly bonkers/horrible imagery that later invaded my dreams and made for a restless night's sleep.
Marx gradually transitions from poking fun at dippy YouTube personalities into a genuinely scary cult leader - which leads the show down a darkly funny path. Along the way she succinctly and accurately sets out the principles of chaos magick, which she paints as a postmodern ritualistic tool that allows individuals to bend the universe to their will. The highlight of her lesson is the initially ridiculous observation that Noel Edmonds is one of the most important mystical thinkers of the modern age and that Mr Blobby is a demon conjured by him that outgrew his master. This gets some of the biggest laughs of the show... but she's right.
But then comes the gut punch. What April is actually about is (spoilers) the subarachnoid brain haemorrhage that Marx suffered soon after I saw her in Unburied last year. This has seriously damaged her short term memory, which would be intensely frustrating for anyone, let alone a professional performer. Worse, her neurologists say there are no signs of recovery and they cannot predict whether things will ever improve for her. Seeing her talk about this as Carrie Marx rather than 'April' is absolutely devastating (to the point of the woman sat next to me beginning to weep).
The revelation throws the rest of the show into context. The 'positive thinking' that April preaches is what well-meaning people have encouraged her to do - but I know full well that you cannot simply positively think your way out of horribleness. Chaos magick is perhaps more useful, its framework of personalised ritual and symbology at least a way to zero in on what you want to achieve and how to do it. But the sense is that these are waves crashing against a granite cliff - the philosophically subjective unable to overcome the physiologically objective. And that, beyond what Marx has achieved before, is true horror.
April is one hell of a piece of theatre. That Marx devised and performs this while suffering from neurological damage is impressive in a way that word doesn't quite cover. Huge kudos must also go to her Hermetic Arts partner Chris Lincé, who directed and was responsible for the excellent video design.
Right now this is my pick of the festival, and I don't see it being knocked off that perch anytime soon. I will treasure my amethyst for a long while yet and I can't wait to see what Hermetic Arts does next. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Carrie Marx kicks ass.
April is at VAULT Festival until 24th February. Tickets here.
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