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.
