Rear View
IOU Theatre
Brighton Festival
Rear View, is a trip in more than one way, a journey where you spend the entire time looking back, literally and figuratively into the city as it unfurls itself unexpectedly around you and into the life under examination by the single performer of the poetry and story unfolding alongside. A trip in a bus, a trip around the city and also very trippy. But to say there’s only one performer is a fib as IOU that innovative Yorkshire theatre company have enlisted the entirety of Brighton to take part and by embedding the performance in the very real world of Kemp Town, the seafront and even the wretched marina this brings to very vivid life a dreamy reflective journey into what it is to be a person and where our lives take place and unfold.
The event starts at an art class, on a barge in the marina, so far so good, even though it means going to the marina, but the sun is shining, there’s a real sense of excitement in the air, the seagulls whirl around the blue sky and we all dutifully board the barge and allow our adventure to unfold.
I’m not going to say anything more about the content of the show as that would diminish the experience, but it’s clever and interactive and make us feel immediately part of what’s happening, then we are taken out to the next venue which is an open top specially build Double Decker bus with high raked seating, headphones, rather comfortable red seats and some charming Festival folk to make sure we’re all safe and happy before off we go, looking back, heading backwards into the day.
The show then takes place in various places around the city, which blend the backdrop into the very real lives of people, the city is fascinated by the bus, which makes us – the audience – the show for a lot of passers-by who stare and wave at us staring and waving back, a pleasantly surreal experience and the headphones pump out an ultra relaxing ambient soundtrack of soporific electronica and the voice of the performer, her mic also picking up snippets of the background noise and people surrounding her.
A gentleman who was drinking on the seafront bench we had stopped near took a pee out over the prom in full view of all us, as the performance went on before him, and there were a few more moments of the real intersecting with the imagined. The role, which was created by and played by Cecilia Knapp and Jemima Foxtrot – alternating performances depending on the day is simple, a 65-year-old women reflects on key moments in her life, taking us to where they happened.
It’s floaty and tries it’s best to be geographically relevant but I felt it not connected to the city unfolding around it. It’s obviously written to work anywhere, but a few local tweaks to seriously connect it to that street, that seafront bench, that side street and pub would have done wonders for the narrative, but I didn’t really care, I was seduced, floating around on a bus, in bliss, watching the seagulls reel under a bright blue sky (did I mention them…. ) mesmerizing music murmuring on in my ears.
It’s been a long time since I’ve been so absorbed by the simple everyday marvelousness of this city by the sea. It’s delightful and we could have spent all day on the bus floating around in the warm comfortable sunshine, music floating and rising and falling in our ears, the seagulls reeling against the blue sky and the city unveiled in unexpected ways.
Brighton looked stunning, the familiar became weird, and the bus offers a novel perspective on the city, it’s inhabitants and just the sheer beauty of a spring day by the seaside.
It was like being in an arty film, where nothing happens in particular but the everyday and ordinary are shot in such vivid HD detail that they become extraordinary, a passing women takes a double look then loops back to stare and take a photo, at us 50 people silently staring back, two lovers outside a pub share a cigarette, a man in an upper story window right next to us holds his Jack Russell up to see, a stoned lady twitches her curtains and looks concerned. Each moment made more vivid with the washing musical soundtrack the interjections of the poetry and the vibrations of the bus itself. This is what immersive theater is all about, transformative, simple and touching. Well-done IOU.
The performance went on, but I’d tripped out, drifting along with the experience, a warm smile on my face, the seagulls reeling amongst a perfect blue sky… and we arrived back to the Marina in a state of bliss. Having had a trip and a half to a half imagined place.
Recommended
For full details of Rear View, click here:
You must be logged in to post a comment.