This Faustian tale of desire is beautifully performed by an extremely talented ensemble. Every element works so well in unison and the elaborate set and concept is refreshing. As an adaptation of Gogol's classic, it finds a lot of ingenious staging and movement set pieces to race through the hour and 10 minutes in a flash. Half of the audience rose to standing ovation at the end and this was their first preview - I have not doubt that once the full run starts this will inspire many more to their feet in applause.
What holds the whole thing together is the fantastic set design. Ti Green has done a phenomenal job at creating an innovative, moveable, adaptable, beautiful and playful set. It changes height, it involves a lot of performers defying gravity, it allows scene changes and scenography in general to add an entirely new level to our understanding and appreciate of the work. It is a massive achievement. The music and sound design, created by Dave Price and Dan Steele respectively, offer another epic layer - punctuation the movement and narrative perfectly, they created an atmosphere that heightened everything that was happening. Without it, this would have been half the show it was.
We meet Akaky - a lower level worker in a busy and generally soul-destroying office. He dreams (fantasises, indeed) of being with the beautiful clerk in his office, who appears to like him but seems more interested in what type of coat he wears than anything else. As it is Akaky's coat is far from what it could be - with holes and generally cheap, he is rejected by his co-workers on social occasions as he would not be let into fancy restaurants and bars. Alone and rejected by a society he is desperate to be part of and willing to do anything to win the love of his dreams, he, essentially, sells his soul to the devil for a coat. Well, that was never going to work out too pleasantly, was it? While Gecko have made the link to Faust a bit more clear than it might necessarily appear, they seem to have been generally faithful, in spirit at least, to the source material. And I don't really care if they haven't been.
The performances, by Robert Luckay, Dave Price, Dai Tabuchi, Natalie Ayton, Amit Lahav, Sirena Tocco and Francois Testory, have a wonderful sense of physicality. Let's be clear, though, this is not dance theatre (why, I might ask, is it under dance in the Fringe broucher?) it is theatre with some dance-like elements. It is certainly not Tanztheater, seeking to find the elusive limits of what the human body can do and what that means. It has a frenetic pace and many very slick movement sequences, but what choreography there is, is unimaginative and generally pretty low key. In fairness, that is made up for in the other qualities of the performances - the vocal clarity (all characters speak different languages but at no time is it unclear what is being said, it is a great example of inter-lingual communication), the movement clarity and the character clarity all stand side by side to make a top notch performance.
The dramaturgy of the piece (we are told that David Farr provided dramaturgy advice, presumably mainly to able director Amit Lahav) was very clear and very useful for our understanding of what it is about. While the over-text is about sexual and emotional desire (an eroticism pervades the entire work) the sub-text makes clear that desire and damnation are both products of consumption - Akaky wants to have the female clerk, he wants to consume her, in order to do so he must possess the coat, when he does, it costs him his life. It's hardly Das Capital but it works all the same.
All in all this is a wonderful performance (though minus points for a company member who was giving out to some one who was flyering at the door as people were leaving; everyone's got to sell their show, no point in bickering about it) and it will no doubt go down very well during the festival. It will strike many as a refreshingly professional production. It should be popular, which is good as it needs to fill the Pleasance Grand, which, as the name suggests, is really rather big. With a show like this, it should be simple.
8 out of 10.
At the Pleasance Courtyard (Pleasance Grand) at 5.20pm.
- James Grogan
What holds the whole thing together is the fantastic set design. Ti Green has done a phenomenal job at creating an innovative, moveable, adaptable, beautiful and playful set. It changes height, it involves a lot of performers defying gravity, it allows scene changes and scenography in general to add an entirely new level to our understanding and appreciate of the work. It is a massive achievement. The music and sound design, created by Dave Price and Dan Steele respectively, offer another epic layer - punctuation the movement and narrative perfectly, they created an atmosphere that heightened everything that was happening. Without it, this would have been half the show it was.
We meet Akaky - a lower level worker in a busy and generally soul-destroying office. He dreams (fantasises, indeed) of being with the beautiful clerk in his office, who appears to like him but seems more interested in what type of coat he wears than anything else. As it is Akaky's coat is far from what it could be - with holes and generally cheap, he is rejected by his co-workers on social occasions as he would not be let into fancy restaurants and bars. Alone and rejected by a society he is desperate to be part of and willing to do anything to win the love of his dreams, he, essentially, sells his soul to the devil for a coat. Well, that was never going to work out too pleasantly, was it? While Gecko have made the link to Faust a bit more clear than it might necessarily appear, they seem to have been generally faithful, in spirit at least, to the source material. And I don't really care if they haven't been.
The performances, by Robert Luckay, Dave Price, Dai Tabuchi, Natalie Ayton, Amit Lahav, Sirena Tocco and Francois Testory, have a wonderful sense of physicality. Let's be clear, though, this is not dance theatre (why, I might ask, is it under dance in the Fringe broucher?) it is theatre with some dance-like elements. It is certainly not Tanztheater, seeking to find the elusive limits of what the human body can do and what that means. It has a frenetic pace and many very slick movement sequences, but what choreography there is, is unimaginative and generally pretty low key. In fairness, that is made up for in the other qualities of the performances - the vocal clarity (all characters speak different languages but at no time is it unclear what is being said, it is a great example of inter-lingual communication), the movement clarity and the character clarity all stand side by side to make a top notch performance.
The dramaturgy of the piece (we are told that David Farr provided dramaturgy advice, presumably mainly to able director Amit Lahav) was very clear and very useful for our understanding of what it is about. While the over-text is about sexual and emotional desire (an eroticism pervades the entire work) the sub-text makes clear that desire and damnation are both products of consumption - Akaky wants to have the female clerk, he wants to consume her, in order to do so he must possess the coat, when he does, it costs him his life. It's hardly Das Capital but it works all the same.
All in all this is a wonderful performance (though minus points for a company member who was giving out to some one who was flyering at the door as people were leaving; everyone's got to sell their show, no point in bickering about it) and it will no doubt go down very well during the festival. It will strike many as a refreshingly professional production. It should be popular, which is good as it needs to fill the Pleasance Grand, which, as the name suggests, is really rather big. With a show like this, it should be simple.
8 out of 10.
At the Pleasance Courtyard (Pleasance Grand) at 5.20pm.
- James Grogan
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