An Lanntair, Stornoway, Isle of Lewis, 10 April 2010

Les Amoureux (photo - Eammon McGoldrick)

STORIES have never gone out of fashion. Amongst the gameboys and the joysticks, narratives still thrive. Some are timeless and some are re-invented, like Angela Carter’s dreamworld retellings of fairy tales and fantasies.

Kally Lloyd-Jones made her debut in directing opera last year when Scottish Opera’s tour of Kátya Kabanová visited many Highland venues, including this one [it returns to Eden Court in early May – Ed.]. Her own Company Chordelia has been given the vote of confidence implied by a flexible funding agreement with the Scottish Arts Council. As director, choreographer and lead dancer, she visited the Lewis arts centre again with the company’s elaborate production of Carter’s story Les Amoureux.

The company also includes Jonothan Campbell, builder of a very effective set, complete with a coffin icon cut-in at a slit and a slant. The visual imagery gave a clue to an approach which provided plenty pleasures for devotees of gothic entertainment. Campbell and Lloyd-Jones have worked together before at An Lanntair, in Aye Productions excellent piece of physical theatre, Sealskin Trousers.

It seems to me that the current production is part of a quest to find contemporary applications of musical theatre. Dance is the foremost element but the set is close to sculpture. There are occasional speeches, if not dialogue, and one character sings.

Think of Miss Havisham in Great Expectations – a woman unable to escape her own story. The imagery of decayed dresses and interminable waiting would be claustrophobic if it were not for the restrained passion escaping into dance moves. But most of the dance is held in rein.

It’s not at all minimal – there are so many things going on ¬ but it’s all orchestrated so that neither dance, nor music nor imagery is overwhelming. The story is told and the audience is held. Like most dance-based pieces the duration has to be short – partly to do with the endurance of the performers and partly the concentration of the audience.

For me, the dream quality was emphasized by Damien Thantrey’s deep and disturbing singing as the soldier. A picture emerged of characters trapped in their own destinies and humane enough to be moving, at times.

But mostly it was baroque entertainment. And here, the inescapable question for any reviewer is the issue of taste. My own taste in theatre and dance verges on the minimal. So a production as elaborate as this is challenging in a way. This is where you have to leave the personal aside and say, it works well on its own terms.

But I’ve got to think of the stunning moments of dance, like the two shadows (Amelia Cardwell and Freya Jeffs) who are restricted in their movement but vibrant within that. And the restrained presence of Linda Duncan McLaughlin as The Keeper. And the haunting solo of Lloyd-Jones with her elongated fingernails (growing in death or limbo?) declining the grammar of desperation.

And perhaps there could be an issue of trusting that the simpler iconography says it all. And maybe, just maybe, the whole production could be could be that bit simpler.

© Ian Stephen, 2010

Links

• Company Chordelia