PERFORMANCE & COMEDY

Bath Spa University Theatre (Fri 18-Sat 19 Nov)

DANCE Sometimes everything comes together: performance, design, music and concept. Earthfall's 'At Swim Two Boys' is just such an instance.

This tender, flowering love story of two boys takes the essence of Jim O'Neill's novel of the same name, which is set against the Irish Easter Uprising of 1916 and the Great War in Europe.

The first thing to strike you is that  the whole thing is played out in water, a tank covering the stage with more showering down the back wall throughout. Just watching the titular two boys (the engaging Murilo D'Imperio Leite and the more reserved Daniel Connor) dance ankle deep in water, sometimes sliding with joy, other times steady of foot and stock still, reflects the cleansing and purity of their relationship, apart from the chaos of the war going on around them.

The choreography could seem macho, but instead it is boisterous, playful and touching. The use of back projections is aptly used but not over done; there are photos from the Great War and the Uprising, as well as enlarged real-time and stop-start images of the boys asleep in the water, drenched but happy. And the musicians don't escape, either. The accordion/tin drum/guitar/electronics duo of Frank Naughton and Sion Orgon are, for the most part, protected from the water by perspex shields, but occasionally are called upon to wade in with the dancers.

There's a terrific moment when one of the boys leaves a small bunch of flowers for his friend before stealing away: so unlikely, yet so innocent. But eventually they can't escape the horrors around them. Connor becomes a soldier, and Leite, who has earlier saved his friend from drowning, finds himself holding him, covered in blood, dying in his arms. The performances are magnificent, as is the staging, and thoroughly deserve the cheers that greet the end. (Lesley Barnes)

Copyright Lesley Barnes 2011