I have just come back from spending a wonderful evening watching a fantastic theatre event. It was in London and it was a play by a young Welsh company.
It was
True/Fiction's newest show,
The Exquisite Corpse at Southwark Playhouse.
I arrived in an atmospheric cavernous space under the railway arches at London Bridge to see small tables around which audience members were sat making exquisite corpses. For those who don't know, this is where you draw a head on a bit of paper and then fold it over and pass it to another person who draws the upper body and arms. They then fold this over and hand it back to you so you draw the lower body...and so on. By the end, you have drawn a character whose different composite parts add up to an interesting, connected whole.
There was a wall covered in multi-coloured exquisite corpses, drawn by previous audience members. It was great to feel I was about to step into an experience that so many people before me had also been a part of. There was also a blackboard wall, inviting the audience to write their own poems and reactions with chalk. The third element of audience interactivity was a shelf of objects numbered 1-16, including a snow globe and school bell. The handwritten instructions told us to change the order of the objects because their order at 7.28pm would be the order of the play's scenes.
The play itself was literally an exquisite corpse; individual scenes running in an order decided by the audience's own placing of the objects without any idea of how this then effects the outcome. Through this random scene running-order, this same audience are then allowed to make their own connections, their own meaning, their own through-line or narrative.
The writing (by 5 Welsh writers) was funny, moving and electric. The ensemble performances (by both Welsh and non-Welsh actors) were energised and generous. The design was simple but highly effective - the space drawn out to be filled with the props and costume items in whatever order was needed. The direction was tight and fluid; overall the production was smooth yet chaotic, a lovely mix of confidence and flying-by-the-seat-of-your-pants.
I came away energised and excited by this interesting method of storytelling and think that True/Fiction are certainly a young Welsh company to watch. Talking to Artistic Directors
Matthew Bulgo and
Anna Bliss Scully after the show, I loved their openness and their inclusive way of making new theatre. It would be great to find a way to bring them back to perform on their home turf.
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