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Future Ruins presents
Directed by Jack McNamara
A review byKirsty Harris for EXTRA! EXTRA!
We walk into a space. Six figures sit and wait for their guide. Slowly the fear rises as they linger in their personal darkness. They are blind and left alone in the wilderness. They have no sense of where they are or what time of day it is; hope fights with panic and despair as we watch them waiting for a rescue that may never come. This piece focuses on the fear that can arise from the unknown. As audience members we cannot know what it’s like to be blind or partially-sighted like the six cast members. The fact that the play contains so little visual action forces us to home-in on the aural qualities on the piece. As time passes we begin to notice the smallest change in a character’s tone of voice, such as the odd quiver that becomes more frequent. Jack McNamara has given the audience a well paced and atmospheric work that manages to create intrigue and a sense of the disturbed circumstances in which the characters find themselves. The pacing of each spoken line is so very important while silence gives time to cultivate panic. Some of the lines seem a trifle over-played and clichéd in their profoundness but this can be forgiven for the high quality of the rest of the performed text. The ability of the performers to hold a moment to breaking point without the aid of visual cues is remarkable. They respond solely to each other’s vocal tones and rhythms and the results are chilling. I venture it is the casting of blind and partially-sighted actors that contributes to this well-timed aural interplay as working from sound alone would be completely natural to them. The actors in The Blind never touch or come within a pace of each other, creating a sense of the isolation of the individuals in this abandoned group. This is further accentuated by the sparse set (designed by Vali Mahlouji) comprising a concrete-like block on which the characters can sit and stand. A mutely lit ambiguous, orb hangs above this block, representing the sun or moon. This ambiguity relates effectively to the way the abandoned group has no means of discerning the hour of day. This play could not have continued in this sound centric way for much longer and at 50 minutes, it pushes the audience to gently explore a new sensory discipline by just the right amount. Any more of the single visual tone and I fear interest would have started to wander. The idea of darkness could have been examined in greater depth to provoke another level of emotion from the audience. The constant half-light seems a little uninspiring for a piece about those who live without ever experiencing light like fully-sighted people. Why not perform all or part of the text in total darkness and really challenge the audience? In order to relate to the condition of the characters I felt I needed to be confronted more violently, really shaken so that I could feel more passion for their plight, alone in the middle of nowhere.
8:15pm
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