The 2 Dimensional Life of Her by Fleur Elise Noble @ The Granary Theatre 20th June 2010
15 Jul 2010 Leave a Comment
in Theatre going Tags: cork midsummer festival, Fleur Elise Noble, The Granary Theatre, young curators
Flicking through the Midsummer Brochure I was immediately captivated by the idea – an artist’s creativity spilling out into reality and using paper as a medium for theatre. However, as seems to be the running theme of my posts it didn’t reach its full potential. To be honest I can’t even get through the promo clip without growing tired of it.
The set was beautiful and clever and for some reason I fell in love with the sounds. I’ve always loved the computer’s stock ‘scribbling’ sound. And the light clunks of the puppets and actress as they moved around was lovely – but I’m weird like that.
The actress was a projection – as was everything else. I was expecting more interplay between reality and the drawings. A clever piece of theatre as opposed to a clever film screening.There were some very interesting visual jokes – like the artist who stamps his face to make portraits. In any case, I didn’t feel any sort of sympathy or connection with the character or the puppets, even when she was in distress. Now coming from me: queen of the weepies and the girl who finds it hard to separate fiction from reality – that’s a bit of a feat. I don’t know if that’s because of the lack of a person on set or the acting or the “story” but nothing made me sit up and take note.
The one way we had built up a relationship with the puppets and their world was by learning their “language”. That is, growing accustomed to the fact they didn’t speak. Unfortunately, this was shattered when Noble, in the flesh, appeared on stage and began to speak to them. For some reason I got angry with Noble over it – though I can’t for the life of me explain why! This was towards the end of the play – when I was still waiting for it to go somewhere and the ending itself? While I won’t spoil it for you, was akin to coming to the crux of a story and having the narrator exclaim: “then I woke up”.
This really cemented the fact the play was about nothing! Which is tragic, because the use of the projections on paper could have worked so well with the right story. Just because a piece is innovative in their approach doesn’t mean it should be excused from delivering a vital story. Take for example “War Horse” (I know, I know). Their main actor is a mute horse puppet – but that didn’t stop them delivering a performance that has made hundreds of audiences rejoice and continually brought thousands of people to tears.
Again it’s a piece where you can’t exactly explain why or how it’s gone wrong because there is some semblance of quality there but it just didn’t go that extra mile. I can’t manage to force much else out of me on the topic, I’m afraid, simply because I’ve forgotten most of the piece but if you’re jonesing for some more information the show’s brochure is here.
pervertedcoffee
