FringeReview Scotland 2024
Forest
RoguePlay Theatre Company
Genre: Acrobatics, Dance and Movement Theatre, Installation Theatre
Venue: Lanternhouse, Cumbernauld
Festival: FringeReview Scotland
Low Down
This is a strong visual connection between the ideals of environmental damage by man and the effects of that damage on our environment, the animals who inhabit their places and our future. Delivered by skilled and committed performers who have a creative interaction with each other and a clear connection to their audience, this is further helped by an interactive workshop afterwards to continue the flow of conversation. With theatre arts at a minimum and at a premium as a willow tree, once filled with carbon capture, dominates the centre of their stage and weeps as it falls in a crescendo of destruction by the end.
Review
Three performers and willow wound round a metal structure built to resemble a tree in the middle of a grass square are the backdrop to the ideals of how man sees and interacts with the natural environment. Our principal protagonist begins by interacting with the tree by noticing its beauty and being welcomed by the two animal-like creatures who inhabit this environment. There is a tender moment when one approaches and rubs themselves in welcome to the human visitor, little knowing that within a short space of time they shall do battle with that same creature over the very survival of their home.
The clarity with which that transformation, from innocent welcome to harsh reality is handled really well with the human interloper clearly seeing the opportunity to bring down the tree with violence as the progressive thing to do with harvesting the wood their principal objective whilst the animals simply want and need the tree to remain in place as it is a sacred element of their lifestyle. Dismissive of their approaches and pleading the human manages to pull, tug and finally fell their tree.
Using movement, dance and circus skills, this manages to maintain a highly effective and creative delivery of a very worrying messages – that the wilful destruction of the heritage of others is likely to lead to catastrophes, not least for the wildlife who live there and nearby to their tree. As a narrative it works well, has clarity and manages to make us part of the solution by inviting the audience at the end into the set to make paper birds, create messages for future audiences and get the chance to walk along the trunk of the now felled tree.
Our performers are highly skilled though their environment was changed. Typically, Scottish weather for July meant that the show, rather than being in the outdoors had to be brought inside and this was an interesting backdrop to reflecting upon the piece. Sometimes there were interactions between the performers where their flow was not quite as smooth physically as you might expect for a piece that had been on the road for such a long time. It made me reflect on whether outside I would have viewed that hesitation and slight physical bump as anything more than the environment, new and unfamiliar, causing performers to be careful in their execution of a difficult move or a balance which requires care, but in the harsh internal environment where risk was better managed that it would stick out rather than be accepted as an indication of the risks taken and the risks of environmental damage. It was a minor element of the whole but a fascinating thought, nonetheless.
This has nice touches and excellent work being undertaken with a strong message of the destruction by man of our world. Delivered with passion and vitality, I left asking questions, most of which were familiar, but now had a strong visual metaphor to add to the undeniably strong reasons to call a halt to such small-minded short sightedness.
