PERFORMANCE & COMEDY

Bristol Ferment @ St Pauls Crypt, Southville, Bristol (Fri 21 & Sat 22 Oct)

NB As this is a showcase of a work-in-progress, our reviewer has filled in the standard public feedback form and left off a star rating – in the spirit of Bristol Ferment

1. A friend asks you to describe what you’ve just seen. What would you say?

A really atmospheric, confident and highly musical interpretation of the Greek myth of Orpheus & Eurydice, performed in the dim and echoey vaulted crypt beneath an old church.  Produced by Damfino (who also gave us the excellent ‘Frankenspine’), it again features the multi-talented Tristan Sturrock (pictured), showing of his best side(s) under the affectionate direction of his real-life beloved, Katy Carmichael. We feel like we’re in a safe pair of hands. This combo stands guarantee for a highly artistic and aesthetically pleasing take on a romantic theme – here we’re being transported down into an other-wordly underworld just beneath the pavements of the real world, away from reality and into the realm of the imagination and subconscious, seduced by sounds, images and texts that are never mundane.

2. Where does the show go from here?

Well, this showcase is the result of 10 days playing in a rehearsal room. That’s what Ferment is good at: providing a creative playground for artists, writers, performers and musicians. It feels like this show will go somewhere and continue to be developed, until it’s completely fermented and ready to pack a heady punch when opened. It feels like the writing needs some more work on it, and the character of Eurydice fleshed out so that we believe that the Big O would actually brave the Underworld in order to retrieve her. At the moment she is a musician, a very nice musician who plays the ethereal hang (a kind of small flying saucer-like instrument that emits cosmic plinks and bongs), but she’s not yet corporeal enough, even in death, to make her worthiness of retrieval by her beloved completely believable. Probably exploring her relationship to Orpheus in life, and maybe playing with past, present and future time, would put flesh on her.

Where the show will go is into another work phase until its centre has been discovered and it takes off. We’d say: carry on as you’re all going, it’s got plenty of chops and legs, style and panache.

3. Can you tell us about 3 things that particularly stand out / that you find particularly engaging?

Definitely the music. A brilliant bunch of musicians collaborate in a European style to make music theatre that’s stylish and different. We really like their wounded hands, and first of all we think that the guitarist is really brave – the show must go on! – to play with such a gaping flesh wound on his hand. But of course it's just ruddy stage paint. But we BELIEVE and we like to be tricked that way. The music adds a really special layer of excellence.

The sparseness. The ability to turn a gnarled branch into the lyre of Orpheus, with no questions asked. We're very willing to see the strings, if invited, and hear the notes being strummed, on a gnarled bit of wood. The same goes for the other light touches in the design. We really love Eurydice appearing with her hang in the back-lit alcove.

The use of a classic theme. You can’t go far wrong with the Greeks, eh, all life and every story ever is contained within them, so they give substance, resonance and weight to contemporary works which otherwise tend to be only about themselves.

4. Any other comments?

The setting is perfect, the only puzzle is the seating because it’s hard to watch something craning your neck sideways. It must be possible to arrange seating another way within the arches and still leave passageways through. The space is a star in its own right: we hope you leave the show there, when it gets there. It feels at home there.

Thank you, we really enjoyed it and want to see more. (Rina Vergano)

Copyright Rina Vergano 2011