Edinburgh Fringe 2024
Bambiland
Peter Lorenz and Jelena Bašic
Genre: Contemporary, Solo Show
Venue: Zoo Southside
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
A script of key moments which are directed to be expressed in a challenging manner. A performance which challenges you throughout, often directly at you. Theatre arts with projection which really do show a real grasp of the theatrical.
Review
This is a tough watch. The narrative weaves and twists and turns leaving us all struggling to hold onto the reality of war that is being depicted. Given that it is a text which is twenty years or so old, I was struck with the possibility that we have both been stuck in the past in terms of our relationship to war and that perhaps there is time now for a new version. This is a very good piece of theatre, but it felt as it seemed – slightly dated, prescient and poignant but managing to distance the audience from it in ways that may help the theatricality but may also complicate the message.
We begin with our performer in a black bin bag with a Bambi figure and a camera. The projection from the bag provokes us to contemplate the issues about to be presented. It is all about the violence being meted out to those innocents that someone somewhere has vowed to protect. From there our protagonists emerges into the spotlight with various black bags being punctured to reveal black water representing oil, more important to the politicians than the people who live next to it, or toy soldiers who become the focus of the projections.
Managing to flit between conflicts of that time we have a distinctly angry voice taking us through each of the literal points being made. The interaction with the audience is heightened by the appearance of photographs of people that are of some concern to the protagonist – a brother, a friend, a family connection. That makes this feel more alive than the playing with toy soldiers. It has a monotone which is almost always heightened and angry whilst it is always trying desperately to make a point. Some tonal balance and variance in pace would help, though lessening the time spent doing nothing because saying nothing is used as a reason to stop could be lessened. The point was made well before the silence.
However, much though I struggled with much of this, it did leave me questioning a lot. Not just about the nature of conflict, given we are in a very dangerous time, but of theatre itself. As a medium to deliver this type of message I do not believe there is anything more likely to effectively balance both sides. It is a medium through which we can debate and can be given sufficient challenge to change our opinions with some degree of confidence that what we are doing is right. But here I felt this was a challenge without structure, leaving me with an overview of conflict unsure aside that whilst against it, what I should explore; not feel, investigate.
The use of the projection was something I really liked though I could have lived with a fixed camera and another performer which would have given the audience another counterpoint from which to connect. And that gave me cause to think about the nature of the piece in the context of theatre. I liked the challenge and being left bereft of options but filled with possibilities was no bad thing.
