Edinburgh Fringe 2013
Circles
Limb2Limb
Genre: Physical Theatre
Venue: Spotlites@ The Merchants Hall
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
“We have all loved, we have all lost, and we all fight to hold onto these memories that are full of pain, but why? Circles is an intimate tale inspired by the human struggle to simply let go”.
Review
We see young adults, playful and full of the puppyish playfulness as they remember their childhood toys and games and growing up together. Little snippets drop into the dialogue and we start to piece together who they are, what they were, and what they are trying to become.
The intensity builds and there are moments of anger and desperation as the bubbling emotions spill out…we start to get an inkling that things aren’t perhaps as they first seemed. Adult issues and realities start to fall into the dialogues with heavy painful thuds and the shock starts to settle in.
The play ends with a resolution, and a lesson learned in letting go – recognising how living in limbo and holding onto to the past keeps us trapped and repetitive…not letting us flower into something that might nourish us more.
This piece is written by Leah Georges and performed with Oliver Theobald. The narrative is clear and effective; the dialogue is well paced and clearly delivered. The moments of physical theatre serve to accentuate the emotional intensity of the piece in a beautiful and moving way. There are excellent moments of verbal mirroring, repeating parts of the narrative, together with well-considered movements, reflecting emotion and grounding the characters – threading through little golden pieces of meaning, finally bringing the play together at the conclusion in a way that satisfies and allows the audience to sigh out.
I personally felt very moved towards the end and was surprised to have been drawn into the emotion of the piece if not the characters themselves, who – with some more development – might be eventually more well-rounded with more of a context to better relate to them.
Limb2Limb should feel extremely proud of this piece of work, the way in which the entire production has been created, organised, produced and delivered is extremely professional and the care and love of their work really comes across.
