Review: Tree Confessions and A Little Drape of Heaven (This Is Not A Theatre Company, C Arts, GM Fringe)

July 2022
Digital Event

The Greater Manchester Fringe ran throughout July, with performances at various venues around Greater Manchester and online. I’ve been reviewing a selection of the productions on offer for this blog, and also for The Festival Show on North Manchester FM.

The next shows I experienced this year were digital productions, and they were part of the C ARTS strand on this year’s Fringe programme. C ARTS is a curated independent arts programme that delivers work for the Edinburgh Fringe, which is then made available online via streaming throughout the year. Although produced for the Edinburgh Fringe, C ARTS productions are now included on the programmes of other fringe festivals, including the Greater Manchester Fringe.

The productions I’m going to be reviewing were available to stream with a ticket purchase from the Greater Manchester Fringe website throughout the month of July. I’m reviewing Tree Confessions and A Little Drape of Heaven, immersive audio dramas by This Is Not A Theatre Company. The radio version of this review will be broadcast on The Festival Show on Friday 5th August, but here’s the blog version…

This Is Not A Theatre Company had three productions on this year’s Fringe programme. Because of space constraints, I’m only going to be talking about two of them today. But I’m pretty sure that my review of those two pieces will encourage you to not only check out Tree Confessions and A Little Drape of Heaven, but also any other work by this innovative company that you might get chance to experience.

So, I’ll start with Tree Confessions. Like the other pieces by This Is Not A Theatre Company, Tree Confessions is a site-specific performance. I’ve seen site-specific theatre at the Greater Manchester Fringe before – it’s always a nice addition to the festival programme, offering a new perspective on familiar places. However, Tree Confessions is a little different to the other site-specific pieces I’ve seen.

For one, it’s an audio drama. And for two, it’s you (the listener) who will choose the site in which the piece is performed. At the start of Tree Confessions, you’re given a simple instruction: find a tree that you like and sit underneath it. You’re going to listen to this audio drama underneath the tree and – at some points, perhaps – interact with your chosen tree. Fortunately, as we know, the weather’s been pretty good this July, giving us all plenty of opportunities to enjoy Tree Confessions as its meant to be enjoyed. (And, in case you’re interested, I chose my favourite old ash tree in Crumpsall Park as my venue for the performance.)

Written by Jenny Lyn Bader and directed by Erin B. Mee, Tree Confessions is a monologue told, as you might have guessed, by a tree.

Kathleen Chalfont is the performer here, and I must say she plays a tree beautifully! But I should also say it’s not quite the performance I expected.

Chalfont’s tree narrator is warm and sonorous (and this effect is heightened by the site-specific, immersive nature of the piece), inviting us to lose ourselves in the story that unfolds. The tree explains early on that a researcher called Cindy has been a frequent visitor to the woods, monitoring and recording the trees in an attempt to prove that they communicate with one another. Cindy has indeed recorded evidence that reveals that trees can speak to one another, but, as our narrator explains, she may not have been given the full story.

What follows is a beautifully meandering exploration of what it means to be a tree. At times humorous, the narration sometimes conjures up a very domestic picture of tree-life. She jokes about her great aunt, for instance, who ‘claimed to be 2,003’. But at other times, there is something more mythic in the storytelling. She recounts the legend of the ‘Great Tree’, a fable to explain why trees release oxygen during photosynthesis.

Elsewhere, the tree explains some scientific – and some not-so-scientific – principles that explain the life of trees and the ecosystem around them, drawing us (the listener) in and encouraging us to – physically, if we are indeed listening under a tree – feel that life and be part of the ecosystem. After all, as we’re reminded, ‘we’re on the same side’.

Tree Confessions is a short audio drama that feels so much longer than its half-hour running time. It certainly achieves its aims of being immersive, as the combination of the storytelling style and Chalfont’s performance makes this a very easy piece to get lost in. I think it’s a mark of how successful this piece is that I genuinely felt sad when it finished.

This is a double-bill review, as I’m going to talk about one of This Is Not A Theatre Company’s other productions now. In some ways, the two pieces I’m talking about in this review are very similar. But, in other ways, they are so very different.

A Little Drape of Heaven is written by Mahesh Dattani and performed by Swati Das. Like Tree Confessions it is an immersive audio monologue that encourages us to look and think differently about an everyday object.

In A Little Drape of Heaven, however, rather than finding our own venue to enjoy the performance, we’re asked to find an appropriate prop. At the beginning, we (the listener) are asked to go to a cupboard – not, I hasten to add, to sit inside to listen to the play! – and find an item of clothing to hold onto as we listen. We are particularly encouraged to find a piece of clothing that belongs to a gender other than our own, and then follow the exhortation to ‘Hold it close to your heart’.

Our narrator here is a sari, a glorious piece of fabric made as a wedding garment but passed through generations to be worn by others. At some point in its history, the sari was discovered by a young boy, whose fascination with the garment is almost a forbidden passion. It is not a piece of clothing intended for a young boy, and yet it draws him with its tactile finery.

Das’s performance is, itself, ‘a little drape of heaven’, lingering on descriptions of being worn with silken tones that speak of a sensuous – almost sexual at times – experience. Dattani’s writing is lyrical and evocative, meaning that, no matter what item of clothing we took from our cupboard to hold, we can picture the beauty and splendour of the sari as she speaks.

As I’ve said, this is quite a different piece to Tree Confessions, and this becomes apparent in the second half. There is a very definitive narrative being told here, though it is easy to lose sight of this as you lose yourself in the more luxurious poetry of the descriptions of the sari being handled and worn. I don’t want to give anything away, but the story that is being told in A Little Drape of Heaven is probably not the one you think is being told. What I will say is that the monologue’s conclusion is a remarkably satisfying ending, and, by revealing the ‘other’ story that lay behind the one we thought we were listening to, A Little Drape of Heaven encourages listeners to imagine that other narrative long after the piece has finished.

A Little Drape of Heaven is a captivating piece, with a compelling performance and an innovative storytelling style. As with Tree Confessions, this is really a piece to lose yourself in, and I thoroughly recommend you check it out at a future festival if you get the chance.

Tree Confessions and A Little Drape of Heaven were available to stream throughout the month of July, as part of the C ARTS strand on this year’s Greater Manchester Fringe programme. For the full programme of Greater Manchester Fringe shows that were on this year, please visit the festival website.

Review: Willy’s Lil Virgin Queen (Terra Taylor Knudson)

July 2022
Digital Event

The Greater Manchester Fringe runs throughout July, with performances at various venues around Greater Manchester and online. Once again, I’m going to be reviewing a selection of the productions on offer for this blog, and also for The Festival Show on North Manchester FM.

The next show I saw this year was a digital production, and it was part of the C ARTS strand on this year’s Fringe programme. C ARTS is a curated independent arts programme that delivers work for the Edinburgh Fringe, which is then made available online via streaming throughout the year. Although produced for the Edinburgh Fringe, C ARTS productions are now included on the programmes of other fringe festivals, including the Greater Manchester Fringe.

The production I’m going to be reviewing now is available to stream with a ticket purchase from the Greater Manchester Fringe website throughout the month of July. I’m reviewing Willy’s Lil Virgin Queen, a performance by Terra Taylor Knudson. The radio version of this review will be broadcast on The Festival Show on Friday 29th July, but here’s the blog version…

In a couple of my previous reviews (for Eliane Morel’s Disenchanted and Hear. Speak. See. by Expial Atrocious), I mentioned the variety of techniques and approaches used to create the pieces on the digital theatre strands of this year’s GM Fringe programme. Willy’s Lil Virgin Queen is yet another type of digital theatre – it’s a recording of a live stage version of the show in front of an audience. Quite a different experience to the ‘lockdown theatre’ faux video calls of Disenchanted or the immersive film experience of Hear. Speak. See., but it’s definitely an approach that works for Knudson’s show.

Willy’s Lil Virgin Queen is a one-woman show that charts Knudson’s relationship to William Shakespeare. And, just to say, it is always figured as a relationship: the title should give you a hint as to the casual familiarity with which Knudson treats the Bard and his work.

The play begins with Knudson performing Mistress Page’s monologue from The Merry Wives of Windsor. It’s a good performance, capturing the warmth and humour of Shakespeare’s character (as well as her acerbic tongue and assertiveness), and it makes for a compelling opener. Here is an actor who knows how to do Shakespeare, we think. Here is someone who knows what the words mean and can convey the sentiment behind them.

But Willy’s Lil Virgin Queen isn’t simply a chance to watch Knudson perform a series of Shakespeare’s monologues – though I have to admit that the opening scene suggests that would be a fun thing to watch. This is a much more personal journey, and Mistress Page’s words soon give way to a reminiscence about watching the play for the first time as a child.

Knudson’s story moves from her early introduction to the work of William Shakespeare, when she tentatively accepted that this might be something she could enjoy, to the beginning of the real ‘relationship’ in her high school years. Her narration is full of humour – sometimes at her own expense, sometimes at the expense of those around her, and often at the expense of Shakespeare himself. She speaks of teenage relationships and reimagines a scene of young heartbreak with herself as Ophelia and her no-good musician boyfriend as Hamlet, explaining that she was ‘living the great Shakespearean soap opera that we all live in high school’.

As Knudson’s personal narrative continues there are detours into the biography of the writer himself (told with an utterly irreverent humour that really reminds you that there are some weird gaps in Willy’s life story), and into the historical circumstances that informed much of his writing (including the Hundred Years War, the Wars of the Roses and the birth of the Tudor Dynasty). I was a bit surprised to find – given the show’s title – that Knudson didn’t linger particularly on Elizabeth I and Shakespeare’s position as a specifically Elizabethan writer, but there is still a lot to enjoy about Knudson’s frenetic and funny take on over five centuries of English history, which singles out Elizabeth Woodville as a ‘Disney Princess’ and lingers on Joan of Arc’s betrayal by the Dauphin (almost as though this might be relevant later in the show). Obviously, as a Brit, I felt a moment of trepidation when the American on stage announced she was going to ‘explain’ a few centuries of our history, but all credit to Knudson – it’s a fun and affectionate take that will win over even the most patriotic audience member on this side of the pond.

At almost breakneck pace, Knudson takes the audience through this background material, which she explains she read about to better understand Shakespeare’s writing and its effect on her, and to her university years. Desperate to be an actor ever since that first experience of watching The Merry Wives of Windsor, Knudson explores the moment she was accepted into a performing arts college (though on a Production Management major rather than an acting course), and the trepidation she felt on moving away from home to a completely different state.

As the monologue moves into its second half – almost a second act – things take a darker turn, and we move from the rollicking ride through English history and Shakespeare’s life story into a much more serious narrative.

Knudson’s account of her time at college is a painful one, and while it begins by framing the experiences in terms of Shakespearean drama (including a disturbing reimagining of her college roommate and ‘torturer’ as a particularly unsettling version of Lady Macbeth), the story moves away from Shakespearean characters and into a nightmarishly personal narrative. This section of the show is heart-breaking to watch, and Knudson’s performance is captivating (in a chilling way), as she recreates or recaptures incredibly raw emotions. While there was a jokey reference to the ‘To be, or not to be’ speech earlier in the show, when this soliloquy eventually reappears, it carries so much more weight and is downright agonizing to watch.

Fortunately – and I don’t think this is a spoiler – Shakespeare saves the day in the end. Or rather, Knudson, supported by the love of the theatre that Shakespeare’s writing has given her, saves her own day. The play ends with jubilance and triumph, which feels like an apt testament to the writer-performer’s resilience, and to the near-magical way in which Shakespeare’s plays have continued to resonate and stay relevant through the centuries.

Willy’s Lil Virgin Queen is a joy to watch. Knudson is a talented and creative performer, and there’s something so natural in her delivery that it’s easy to forget this is a scripted show. The experience of watching a recording of a live performance was very enjoyable, but I must admit it made me a little jealous of the audience for that show. Willy’s Lil Virgin Queen is a very intimate show, and Knudson’s performance style is so charismatic and familiar, that I feel like seeing the show live would be a really satisfying experience. Maybe one day I’ll get to find out…

Despite my pang of jealousy towards the live show’s audience, I’m very pleased to discover that the Greater Manchester Fringe is actually the show’s international debut (because what finer Fringe is there to host this debut?). If you get chance to stream the show before the end of the GM Fringe, I recommend you do so. If not, it is going to be available to stream as part of the Edinburgh Fringe programme in August, and then the Sydney and Melbourne Fringes later in the year. And it’s definitely worth a watch.

Willy’s Lil Virgin Queen is available to stream throughout the month of July, as part of the C ARTS strand on this year’s Greater Manchester Fringe programme. For the full programme of Greater Manchester Fringe shows on this year, please visit the festival website.

Review: Disenchanted: A Cabaret of Twisted Fairy Tales (Eliane Morel, C ARTS, GM Fringe)

July 2022
Digital Event

The Greater Manchester Fringe runs throughout July, with performances at various venues around Greater Manchester and online. Once again, I’m going to be reviewing a selection of the productions on offer for this blog, and also for The Festival Show on North Manchester FM.

The next show I saw this year was a digital production, and it was part of the C ARTS strand on this year’s Fringe programme. C ARTS is a curated independent arts programme that delivers work for the Edinburgh Fringe, which is then made available online via streaming throughout the year. Although produced for the Edinburgh Fringe, C ARTS productions are now included on the programmes of other fringe festivals, including the Greater Manchester Fringe.

The production I’m going to be reviewing now is available to stream with a ticket purchase from the Greater Manchester Fringe website throughout the month of July. I’m reviewing Disenchanted: A Cabaret of Twisted Fairy Tales, a performance by Eliane Morel. The radio version of this review will be broadcast on The Festival Show on Friday 29th July, but here’s the blog version…

Disenchanted is a one-woman show (though not a one-character show by any means), written and performed by Eliane Morel. It opens on a title card, telling us we’re in Paris in 1699, and a voiceover introduces us to the salon of Madame d’Aulnoy (played, as all the characters are, by Morel).

There are a good number of digital theatre productions on this year’s GM Fringe programme. Some are part of the C ARTS strand, and some have been produced for the GMF Digital Events strand. I saw three of these productions back-to-back this week, which was a good way to dispel any preconceptions that ‘digital theatre’ is a homogenous thing or that it doesn’t offer endless opportunities for innovation and creativity. The three digital theatre events I saw this week were all very different, not least in the different film formats they used for their productions.

Morel’s Disenchanted is what we might call ‘lockdown theatre’, the sort of digital theatre we saw a lot of in 2020-21. By this I mean, it uses a faux video conference format that is self-conscious about its restrictions. In this case, Morel draws a historical connection to make the ‘lockdown theatre’ format make sense. Paris has been struck by plague, and Madame d’Aulnoy is unable to invite visitors to her salon. She consults the Magic Mirror (also played by Morel, and appearing in split screen) who introduces her to ‘magic’ that will allow her to speak to visitors remotely. It will also allow Madame to ‘swipe down’ on the – presumably – mirror to contact her guests for the evening – all of whom are characters from fairy tales.

I’ve referred to this format as ‘faux’ video conferencing, as of course it isn’t actually recorded on a conference platform. This is a film – performed, recorded, edited – and so when Madame ‘swipes down’, we are actually cutting to a different scene and Morel is able to let her characters interact with one another as a result.

‘Lockdown theatre’ was born of necessity, but it always contained the potential for intervention and innovation. Morel explores this potential through the visual techniques used to enhance the performances, including animation, overlaying, colourful backgrounds and subtitling. The overall effect is a film that, while giving a nod to the social restrictions in which it was created (and a nod to historical parallels to those restrictions), is a rich and enjoyable visual experience that feels complete (i.e. not like we’re missing out on something).

I seem to have said a lot about the format there! I think watching three productions in quick succession – and I will be reviewing the other two shortly as well – really draws your attention to the varied ways performers and companies use the technologies available. That said, I really do need to say something about the actual story of Disenchanted now!

Madame d’Aulnoy has invited five characters from fairy tales to attend her (virtual) salon and tell their story through the medium of song. The Magic Mirror is excited to hear that they will be meeting ‘princes and princesses’, but Madame is quick to disabuse him of this. She has invited minor characters, ones who don’t usually get to tell their tales. The intention, it is clear, is to offer a different perspective on well-known tales. As this is something many other writers have done over the years, I was curious to see whether Morel really could give us something fresh.

And I was not disappointed! There is some real originality in Disenchanted, and some surprising ‘twists’ on the tales.

Our first visitor/performer is Olga, one of Cinderella’s stepsisters. We’re probably on familiar territory here, as there have been a number of retellings of Cinderella from her stepsisters’ perspective over the years. Morel’s Olga is a lively creation though, singing us through her story of poverty, social climbing, jealousy and resentment. The performance is comical, particularly as it ends with a coda explaining that Cinderella and Prince Charming later decided to ‘consciously uncouple’ from the Royal Family and wondering if Prince Charming’s ‘disreputable divorced uncle’ might offer another opportunity for Olga and her sister to marry into royalty after all. But Morel’s character here is also charmingly human. I enjoyed the fact that she avoids rewriting the story to make the ugly sisters the victims of the story, but rather to add context to their circumstances that might explain – if not excuse – their mistreatment of their stepsister. Olga is spiteful and selfish, but she’s also rather engaging in her resilience and ambition (and Cinderella does come off as just as ambitious and self-preserving as her sisters here). It’s hard not to enjoy Olga’s gleeful plan to ‘live the life we choose / In our gigantic shoes!’ at the end of the song.

From here, Morel’s takes get a little less familiar and a lot more surprising. We meet Gertie, the goose liberated by Jack in Jack and the Beanstalk, who sings about ‘going free-range’ and starting a union of golden egg laying fairy tale geese. The unexpected message of her song is that ‘you are the controller of the means of your production’.

Next, we meet Mr Wolf from Little Red Riding Hood who offers us a very different interpretation of events from that story – and it’s this sequence that necessitates the warning that this is not a show for children – that is a lot of fun. And then the final performance is from Sleeping Beauty, the only princess who appears in Disenchanted, who reminds us that, while she is the title character of the story, much of Sleeping Beauty is about things done to the princess, rather than things done by her. In a rather polemic take on the story, Morel reframes Sleeping Beauty’s encounter with Prince Charming as non-consensual molestation (actually, that’s not really reframing it, is it? that’s actually what happens) and has her sing ‘Listen, pal, #MeToo’ before realizing that other fairy tale princesses have endured similar abuse.

For me, though, the absolute highlight of Disenchanted was the character that came between Mr Wolf and Sleeping Beauty. ‘Angelique’ (Morel supplies a name for a usually nameless character) is one of the dead wives of Bluebeard, and she tells her story – and those of Bluebeard’s other victims – in a plaintive song set to the tune of ‘Sway With Me’. It’s a genuinely haunting and moving number, and the effect is heightened by the use of visual editing techniques to overlay and impose multiple faces on screen, reminding us that this is the story of more than one woman. Morel’s make-up here is unsettling – particularly coming immediately after the comical stylings of Mr Wolf – and it’s striking that this is the only character who doesn’t interact with Madame d’Aulnoy or the audience during their appearance.

Morel has an impressively operatic vocal range, which she puts to good use in the performances in Disenchanted, varying the style as the songs and stories require and dipping into more informal tones for comedic or conversational effect. Again, a highlight for me was the ‘Angelique’ number, in which Morel uses her distinctive vocal style to striking effect.

Overall, Disenchanted is a fun cabaret-style story that encourages us to think differently about well-known fairy tales. The way certain themes from Morel’s reimaginings weave together, and the way she incorporates bits of Madame d’Aulnoy’s own biography, give Disenchanted a coherence that makes this show both a cabaret and a narrative in its own right.

I really enjoyed this production of Disenchanted – it worked really well as a piece of digital theatre. I believe that Morel has performed a live version of the show this year as well (in Australia), and I would love to see that version as well. Seeing Morel transform from one character to the next without the aid of video technology would be something to see! Those of us outside Australia may have to wait for this opportunity, but in the meantime, I highly recommend checking out the digital version of this show.

Disenchanted: A Cabaret of Twisted Fairy Tales is available to stream throughout the month of July, as part of the C ARTS strand on this year’s Greater Manchester Fringe programme. For the full programme of Greater Manchester Fringe shows on this year, please visit the festival website.

Review: The Story of the Tower (Hirai-Kikaku and Media Kobo, C ARTS, GM Fringe)

July 2022
Digital Event

The Greater Manchester Fringe runs throughout July, with performances at various venues around Greater Manchester and online. Once again, I’m going to be reviewing a selection of the productions on offer for this blog, and also for The Festival Show on North Manchester FM.

The next show I saw this year was a digital production, and it was part of the C ARTS strand on this year’s Fringe programme. C ARTS is a curated independent arts programme that delivers work for the Edinburgh Fringe, which is then made available online via streaming throughout the year. Although produced for the Edinburgh Fringe, C ARTS productions are now included on the programmes of other fringe festivals, such as Brighton Fringe and – more importantly for today’s post – the Greater Manchester Fringe.

The production I’m going to be reviewing now was originally produced for the 2021 Edinburgh Fringe, but it’s available to stream with a ticket purchase from the Greater Manchester Fringe website throughout the month of July. I’m reviewing The Story of the Tower, a short film installation from Hirai-Kikaku and Media Kobo. The radio version of this review will be broadcast on The Festival Show on Friday 8th July, but here’s the blog version…

The Story of the Tower begins with a shot of a railway station in Tokyo, with ambient sounds playing. A voiceover (Mitsuko Hirai) greets us (admittedly greets us as though we’re in Edinburgh in August 2021!) and encourages us to relax and get ready for the show. A little bit of background information is given, explaining that three stories will be told and that these will be in Japanese, English and broken, mistranslated English. The Japanese story, we’re told, will be ‘One Arm’ by Yasunari Kawabata, and a brief plot synopsis is offered for those who don’t speak Japanese or who haven’t read the English translation of this story.

And then the camera begins to move. The audience is invited to travel with the disembodied voice, from the station to the theatre where the performance will take place, and to enjoy the sounds of a shopping street in Tokyo along the way. It’s a strange experience – the camera is steady, and the pace of movement is measured (as though we’re ambling, not speeding through the city street). It’s almost hypnotic. But there are also some little details in the street – the snippets of sound, the way the bodies of passers-by move in and out of shot at awkward accidental angles, the quiet voyeurism of the disembodied point-of-view, the shop signs that are a jumble of Japanese, English and mistranslated English (one or two being hard to parse for a native English speaker) – that anticipate the style and concerns of the production proper.

And then we enter a ‘theatre’ (which appears more like a basement room in a rather nondescript office) and the physical performance begins.

A lone performer (Yoshiko Imamura, who also choreographed the piece) stands against a plain wall holding an arm towards her face. Another arm appears, covered with a long glove. As the performance unfolds, chromakeying is used to project – or more accurately to layer – a set of images onto the glove, the wall and (eventually) the body of Imamura (filming is by Rob Moreno). The images are of arms and faces, which interact (it looks like they touch, caress and hold) the ‘live’ body of the performer. All the while, Hirai reads from Kawabata’s story, the audio forming another layer to the performance.

This sequence is hypnotic – though in a different way to the pre-show sequence on the street. The effect of the layering of images in the film results in Imamura’s body becoming fragmented, incoherent at times. It is often difficult to understand what ‘shape’ the performer’s body has, as it is distorted by the multiple limbs that are superimposed through the filming. At a number of points, I was surprised to find that the hand I had assumed was Imamura’s was actually part of the projected film.

And a similar effect is created with the audio. Although Hirai begins by telling the story as though she is reading it quietly, the voiceover also becomes layered, with echoes and whispers added to create a subtle sense of polyphony that augments the polymorphous visuals. This is both unsettling and mesmeric, and I would say the effect was heightened by the fact that I don’t understand Japanese (I think I picked out one single word from the voiceover, but that was ‘arigato’ so I’m not sure that’s a huge achievement from me!), and this heightened the uncanniness of the sequence. Hirai’s voiceover was recognizable and familiar as storytelling, but unfamiliar because of the language barrier; in the same way, Imamura’s body was recognizable and familiar as a human body, but also unfamiliar because of the movement of both the performer and the layering of other limbs and body parts.

From here, the piece moves into another story. This time it’s ‘The Black Tower’ by Mimei Ogawa, which is told in English. Again, Imamura offers a wordless physical performance, with images projected on and around her. In this sequence, it’s not so much the physical body that is fragmented and distorted through the layered images, but rather a sense of framing and staging.

The other effect created by placing these sequences together is a distortion – or an undermining – of narrative structure. While both ‘One Arm’ and ‘The Black Tower’ are narratives (though as magic realism and fairy tale respectively, they may not be the most logical of stories), The Story of the Tower turns them into fragments and layers them together in a way that unsettles narrative coherence. The drive for audience members to make connections between the two stories or to link them in terms of theme or plot is consistently thwarted and – in places – the stories dissolve into a sea of words.

And this is where the piece’s underlying influence becomes apparent. As the introductory sequence tells us, The Story of the Tower is inspired by the story of the Tower of Babel. The final sequence, in which a recording of an automated transcription of the breaking news of the destruction of the Twin Towers plays (in occasionally broken or slightly awkward English) over Imamura’s performance and the layered visuals that take us backwards through the Tokyo street scene we experienced at the beginning, brings everything together in a way that – for all its incoherence and uncanniness – does make sense. Again, the piece plays with the effect of defamiliarization: the measured walk through the city street from earlier becomes unfamiliar – almost uncomfortable – as it plays in reverse, in black-and-white, with the physical presence of the performer appearing to step in and out of the film.

The Story of the Tower is a strange and immersive piece. It’s visually hypnotic, but it also has a wonderfully disconcerting soundscape that compliments the physical performances. It encourages the audience to think about communication and its breakdown – as is clear from the reference to the Tower of Babel – but also about the construction of narrative and the coherence of form in physical performance and storytelling.

Overall, I would definitely recommend you check out The Story of the Tower (and I’d also recommend you watch it with headphones, so you can get the most out of the audio elements). It’s strange, compelling and challenging, and it’s unsettling in all the right ways.

The Story of the Tower is available to stream throughout the month of July, as part of the C ARTS strand on this year’s Greater Manchester Fringe programme. For the full programme of Greater Manchester Fringe shows on this year, please visit the festival website.