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Sound Dust present Invisible Storms
Sarah Louise Young & Richard Atwill in Invisible Storms Photo by Graham Michael
Devised and Directed by Jamie Harper and Dan Muirden
Cock Tavern Theatre
5 – 30 May 2009
A review by Colette Gunn-Graffy for EXTRA! EXTRA!
It used to be, when government officials discussed the ‘issue’ of climate change, often what was being debated was whether it was an ‘issue’ at all. Now that even former U.S. president George W. Bush has acknowledged that global warming is both real and pressing, the question is whether special interests will continue to affect environmental protection regulations. Invisible Storms, a promising, if uneven, piece of devised theatre is an attempt to address this question. What is most impressive about this collaboration between playwright Dan Muirden and director Jamie Harper is its coherence. All too frequently, devised work, whilst bursting with vital images and exciting ideas, falters when it comes to creating a cohesive narrative. This is not true of Invisible Storms, whose startling and complex plot unwinds with dexterity to a shattering conclusion. The play opens late at night at the Kilburn residence of Conor Barnham (Benjamin Peters) and his mother (Carrie Jones). A mild-mannered environmental bureaucrat, Conor has just placed an advert for a live-in housecleaner. Interviews are to be conducted the following morning, but when Katja (Sarah Louise Young), a pretty young Polish woman, shows up twelve hours early, Conor cannot find it in himself to turn her away. Scenes showing the evolution of their relationship are juxtaposed with scenes from a second-storyline: a farm on the Norfolk coast is threatened by rising sea levels. After ten years of fighting the government environmental agency’s refusal to build protective sea walls around his home, the farmer kills himself; his children, Richard (Richard Atwill) and Kat (Sarah Louise Young) vow revenge. Only midway through is the connection between the two stories revealed. Invisible Storms is billed as not being scripted, with the actors improvising their lines every night. Whilst this strategy can make for a more immediate experience, the play’s tightly woven plot dictates that, actually, there cannot be that much variation in the action from night to night. Unfortunately, the end result is a repetitive dialogue that causes many scenes to sag in the middle. The pacing as well feels surprisingly slow for a play only ninety minutes long. Despite the imminent danger surrounding the farm, we feel little sense of urgency for any of the characters until the two stories merge; nor do we feel much empathy. One of the problems is that character relationships are often unclear, and motivation, at times, somewhat unbelievable. When we first meet Kat, she is cold and completely opposed to Richard’s plan to continue hounding the environmental agency about the farm; though she makes an important discovery that changes her mind, it is difficult to understand how this particular discovery warrants the extent of her conversion (bordering on fanatic) and the fact that she is willing to risk her partner and son to seek revenge. Similarly, questions abound about the basis of Kat’s relationship with her partner Max – which feels almost flippant at the start of the play, but towards the end is clearly not – and also about Conor and his mother: who, for instance, is supporting who? Though the acting is excellent all around, it is perhaps no surprise that the most impressive performances come from Peters and Young, whose characters (Conor and Katja) are most grounded within the story itself. Though Invisible Storms is set in two distinct locations, the current production offers little sense of ‘place’. The play is performed with a table and three chairs in the black box theatre space upstairs in Kilburn’s Cock Tavern, and the location is indicated by a single prop (coffee pot, tea pot, child’s sippy cup, etc) carried on and off stage by the actors between scenes. Unfortunately, this system becomes extremely confusing if (or when) a prop is left out when it shouldn’t be. Though its characters and themes could have benefited from lengthier development, there are many things to like about this ambitious production, in particular, its examination of the complexity of human morality. In claiming to tackle ‘the defining issue of our time: climate change’, the creative artistes behind Invisible Storms have brilliantly, if perhaps inadvertently, identified its next major obstacle: the impersonal nature of bureaucracy.
Tues - Sat @ 8pm Tickets £12 (£10 Concessions) Box Office: 08444 771 000 Cock Tavern Theatre 125 Kilburn High Road, London, NW6 6JH
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y Couzen