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It's Dark Outside - One4Review

It’s Dark Outside

| On 15, Aug 2013

*****

Tim Watts, Arielle Gray and Chris Isaacs have created an absolute gem of visual theatre. There is live stage action in the form of puppetry and mime. A full size screen of cinema dimensions is used to convey back-lit black and white silhouettes plus rich colour animation. What is so impressive is how the different forms of visual expression are blended together seamlessly to give a continuous wordless narrative. Augmenting the action is the delicate and haunting sound track created by Rachael Dease.

The central character is an old man living in the semi-arid landscape of mesas and buttes in the American west. He leaves his home in the middle of the night to begin a bizarre adventure. Is he searching into his past or he is escaping from capture or perhaps both? His physical and mental powers are certainly failing him. On this journey, curious things happen; his tent takes on the movement of a horse; clouds morph into a dog and later into a baby. All the while, a mysterious Clint Eastwood spaghetti western like figure is tracking him down.

My advice if you are seeing this show is don’t intellectualise too much about what the narrative is about, just sit back and enjoy the stunning and enthralling imagery.

Reviewed by Ben

Underbelly Bristo Square; 300

31July to 26 August 2011 (not 13)

17.30 – 18.30

Fringe Programme Page Number: 294

 

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