Edinburgh Fringe 2012

Not a word is spoken but much is communicated in this moving show that is inspired by W.B. Yeats’ great poem, The Tower (‘That being dead, we rise, dream and so create, Translunar Paradise’). This is a tiny play, theatre in miniature, played by only two Le Coq actors (George Mann and Deborah Pugh) and an accordionist (Kim Heron). Neatly accompanied by a musical soundscore, this mask and mime based show is exquisitely observed and performed.

When William’s wife dies, he escapes to a paradise of fantasy and past memories, a place far from the reality of his grief. Returning from beyond the grave, Rose revisits her widowed companion to perform one last act of love: to help him let go…

 

Theatre ad Infinitum’s George Mann and Deborah Pugh move beautifully together in an intimate pas de deux that laments the passage of time and looks back over a lifetime lived together. As the play opens, we see the masked actors sitting at a table, William and Rose, a couple living together with the habits of a Darby and Joan, cups and saucers, put out in the same way at the same time each day. Their long-standing, loving relationship is established deftly and swiftly. Then the pair undertake a dance where the man holds the woman but, again and again, she slips away beyond his grasp until ultimately he is left alone. From this bereavement, the play goes onto construct a lifetime of shared pasts and memories, a gentle portrait of bereavement that as it travels from raw grief becomes the celebration of a life.

 

The two characters beautifully depict their present and former selves with the use of masks and physical movement. As their older selves they are masked and stooped, moving with stiffness and frailty; when they take off their masks to become their younger selves they step back into another age where as they romance one another, row, reconcile and make love they seem to grow wings. The way the actors employ the masks is superb, creating that dichotomy of distance and closeness that fine mask acting can produce. It’s a wonderful bridge between their present and former selves and creates a wonderful sense of intimacy with William and Rose.

 

A succession of scenes are played out from William leaving for war, Rose miscarrying a baby, the couple rowing, making love – with the couple swooping in and out of youth to their masked old age. As they slough off successive skins, we are reminded of how many selves we contain – of how we are to other people and of the many selves we have been. Age at times can mask our internal essential selves to the outside world and even to ourselves; the use of masks emphasises this again and again. As well as bereavement, the play has much to say about identity. Primarily though, it is a play about love, its enduring nature and how we reconcile ourselves to loss.

 

There are times when the play strays too close to the boundary of sentimentality and has a flavour of Brief Encounter. Some of the scenes chosen from a life are cliched and a little too predictable. However, overall Translunar Paradise immerses you in a series of feelings, sensations and movements, leaving a kaleidoscope of images to float across the memory and creating something very special that is uplifting rather than depressing,