Camden Fringe 2013
Low Down
Intuitive Creatures give us an epic small story of a holiday tragedy and its ramifications in the the human, animal, and natural worlds. Music, songs, physical theatre and absurd effects – it’s hard to explain and impossible not to like.
Review
Stephen and Renata have gone on holiday to Greece and, while in an olive grove, a bee stings Renata. She is traumatised. The police become involved. The bee eludes capture and seeks to start a new life in America, where he can indulge his love for jazz. Renata and Stephen’s marriage, meanwhile, has broken down: they are both too shaken to return to their lives before the incident, and Stephen suffers from a crisis of masculinity.
That is an attempt at a plot outline of Intuit This, and can only give you the merest glimpse of insight into what really happens on stage or what this show is. A better way might be to say that it’s four incredibly talented performers having immense fun stretching every stitch of their story beyond the snapping point. Every element is perfectly tuned: the gravitas of the performances, the character of the songs, and the wonderful leftfield subversions of theatrical convention.
If it all sounds too whimsical then I’m not doing it justice. There is great technique needed to elevate something so apparently stupid to this level of art; and though all the performers were fantastic, I do need to single out Roisin O’ Mahony’s fish-footed policeman – a study of a man in psychological free-fall as good as anything you’ll see this year.
This show is precisely why I love the fringe – you just can’t see this sort of thing anywhere else.
