REVIEW: Brighton Fringe: Torn Apart

Torn Apart (Dissolution) 

Distrikt

Bj McNeill

This play about the complexities of relationships and how our upbringing directly influences us and our ability to maintain loving relationships is a complex engaging piece of work. It focused on 3 relationships – American soldier and Polish woman in Germany, a young lad and girl from Melbourne, and a lesbian couple. The  minimalist setting focused the action; a double bed in the middle viewed through vertical pieces of string along the front of the stage representing the ties that bind, heart strings or the complex intertwining of emotional turmoil or perhaps how Macramé  is the cure for all ills.  Each couples had a slot each before being replaced by another and so on giving us an insight into their relationships and their struggles.

Full details of the show here

Ultimately culminating in the revelation that the American soldier was the father of the lad and the woman who had recently separated from her female partner.  I may have missed this being hinted at earlier but was too interested in the strings which were woven tighter than the narrative at some points and were used by the actors to bring to life their emotional struggle with some curious bits of physical theatre. This lost and confused me but the actors were committed to deliver a convincing and powerful performance despite not fully engaging on occasion.

I enjoyed the setting of St Mark’s Chapel the space taken over by Distrikt who have accomplished something interesting in this new fringe venue and a helping of gratuitous nudity never goes amiss in the festival, although my companion thought it felt at odds for a play of this type. Short monologues at the end from the three protagonists culminating with the final scene of the American soldier and Polish woman slow dancing as if in a dream closed the show and I left feeling slightly confused and cold by the whole experience.