Spirit ( Archived )

Reviews

newspaper reviews

Direction: Julian Crouch and Arlene Audergon. Design: Graeme Gilmour, Rob Thirtle, Helen Maguire and Julian Crouch.

Lighting: Colin Grenfell. Sound: Andrew Paine.

Cast: Guy Dartnell, Phelim McDermott, Lee Simpson.

“There are no costumes and no furniture – everything we see is conjured on this slatted wooden slope. They’re three boys playing with toys: to create larger panoramas, they produce cardboard planes, silver guns or rubbery puppets. Propped on the edge of the stage, these then strut and shoot like macabre, headless Action Men, then, with the simple addition of a round bread roll they become snap-jawed, bullying square-bashers.

“But the most macabre dummy is Bob himself. After bombing a town – cardboard cut- out skyscrapers sprout and then subside between the planks of the slope – his plane is shot down. Grasping his “corpse” with the same brutal nonchalance with which they worked the puppets, brothers Tom and Ted enact their own eagerly imagined stories of Bob’s survival, his escape and his last, suicidal battle to save himself. Dartnell and Simpson work McDermott’s body, turn his head, and fire his pistol with boyish “tfffs” and “pows”.

“You won’t exactly get narrative from Improbable, but you just have to wait for these imagistic gems. The limp, lifeless mannequin that McDermott’s body becomes expresses everything that the brothers leave unsaid about loss – and about the need to keep someone’s spirit alive.”

THE INDEPENDENT March 21, 2001 Jonathan Myerson

“If you’ve seen Improbable Theatre’s work (and if you haven’t, you’ve missed some of the most amazing theatre of recent times), you’ll know that they make a virtue of their friendliness. Their light-footed adventures in storytellingare marked by breezily open relationships with their audiences and with one another.

“It’s a fairy-tale about three bakers, and stars Simpson, McDermott and Time Out Award winner Guy Dartnell. Daringly programmed by Royal Court supremo Ian Rickson after seeing it in Glasgow a year ago, ‘Spirit’ has since evolved considerably. Originally, the piece broached issues surrounding global conflict, says McDermott, ‘but it was all a but pretentious’. Simpson agrees: ‘We weren’t really in it, we were sort of symbols.’

“This is mouth watering stuff to those who’ve seen the company’s recent efforts to infiltrate honesty and interactivity into the theatre.”

TIME OUT March 14 – 21, 2001 Brian Logan

“Improbable Theatre is unlike any other theatre company. It’s not just its name which tells you that but its history. It makes shows out of just a ball of Sellotape (70 Hill Street). Or the stories of random members of the audience (Lifegame). In fact, you could say it likes to present itself with a problem and then make a play out of it. Except that would be too simple a diagnosis. Improbable makes shows out of lots of different things. If you’ve seen Shockheaded Peter (and you really should), you will know this already.

“Improbable is known for using cardboard cut-outs, puppets and other playful visual material. However, it chose to tackle conflict in Spirit to counteract its occasionally frivolous profile. ‘Not that Spirit comes up with an answer to world peace or anything,’ says McDermott. ‘I mean, that’s sort of its point.

“‘If a story comes from the right place, then it will speak to people.’ Very simple, very true. And not in the least bit improbable.”

METRO March 13, 2001 Claire Allfree

“Knowing in their bones that theatre is a living art, the members of Improbable Theatre are keen to play with and even spook its conventions. Spirit, the London-based company’s latest work, is a mournful yet often comic act of the imagination that blurs the line between reality and fiction with charm and clarity.

“This is theatre that doesn’t hand out its meanings on a plate. It is up to us to connect the dots that draw out the show’s themes (masculine aggression, mortality, make-believe). The most macabre, beautiful and funny passage finds the “corpse” of McDermott treated like a puppet by his actor-brothers. Eventually he “wakes up” and, banishing the others, holds himself hostage, threatening his won imaginary life.

“Again Improbable demonstrates a genius for achieving sophisticated effects via simple means. The stage, beautifully lit by Colin Grenfell, is a handsome piece of steeply raked wood with pop-up trap doors. A large sheet and a few sandbags convert the slope into a bedroom. A small-scale city made of paper cut-outs slips up through slits in the wood. Then, in the subtlest suggestion of wartime devastation, this instant civilisation falls back through the cracks.

“Improvisations that open and close the show – essentially relaxed bits of quasi-therapeutic true confession -risk waxing too lax. Still the three actors generate a load of goodwill as people who share a palpable history on and off stage and a belief, to quote McDermott, in “theatre to die for.”

THE TIMES March 21, 2001 Donald Hutera

“Improbable Theatre, as one of the most energising and provocative forces in British theatre, has produced a piece that is as much about making theatre and stories as it is about telling them. Whether you find it irritatingly self-conscious or that it talks to you from the heart, this is a show you cannot ignore.

“Most of all there is the company’s ability to connect with an audience so it feels as if we are linked by an invisible and pulsating umbilical cord. Then there is the design – a little miracle of tiny doors and openings that reveal the secrets of the heart sign, presumably largely the brainchild of Julian Crouch.

THE GUARDIAN March 17, 2001 Lyn Gardner

“A transcendent night can be had at the Royal Court watching Spirit. This is the latest company-devised gem by Improbable, whose core members include Phelim McDermott and Julian Crouch – the creative duo behind the flamboyant West End hit Shockheaded Peter. Whilst just as fantastically inventive, Spirit is a more intimate, quiet three-hander about brotherly love, productive and destructive impulses. It’s quietly played out on a narrow, steep slope of wooden planks.

“The storytelling is inspired, flexible, funny and poignant. In one scene, centuries of civil war are played out by small, ghoulish rag puppets who batter and yell at each other with monstrous heads fashioned out of torn bread rolls. At another point, our threesome just keep gleefully sliding down the stage until that game transmutes into a danse macabre, a vision of humanity hurtling into a mass grave. The bakers’ tale is, meanwhile, framed within two tongue-in-cheek yet painfully autobiographical therapy sessions, where the trio confess to the artistic troubles they’ve had with one another. What’s wonderful is that Spirit, co-directed by Crouch and Arlene Audergon – who’s an expert in conflict resolution – was born out of a near-fatal bust-up of Improbable itself.”

THE INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY March 18, 2001 Kate Bassett