Showing @ Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, until Wed 23 Nov – run ended
This double bill at the Traverse is a perfect example of both the very best and very worst of Cryptic Theatre’s nature. The company likes to journey where others fear to tread and challenges the conventional; but often, like many explorers, they get hopelessly lost. Josh Armstrong‘s chilling two-parter immerses while exploring the ‘power of transformation’.
The first part of this show, World To Come, is beautiful to look at and wonderful to listen to but is also utterly vapid without any depth or real imagination, a criticism which has been levelled at Cryptic’s work before and undoubtedly will be levelled again. Cellist Oliver Coates plays David Lang’s haunting piece in combination with recorded loops, and by itself, creates a hypnotic and ethereal sound. The nebulous visuals from artist Jack Phelan – looking like watercolour washes or ice forming on water, are initially entrancing but after five minutes everything that could be said with the piece has been said. It’s difficult not to get the feeling that this work is like a precocious toddler who keeps showing you the same trick over and over again.
But Little Match Girl Passion shows exactly what Cryptic can do when it puts its mind to it. The combination of dance from Emma Snellgrove and operatic music from singers Nicola Corbishley, Jimmy Holliday, Clare Wilkinson and Christopher Watson are used to conjure up an astonishing evocation of Hans Christian Andersen’s tale of magic, tragedy and love. Using the structure of Bach’s St Matthew’s Passion which dwells upon the suffering of Jesus, David Lang elevates the pain and tragedy of the match girl to heights that a simple stage play could never manage. Combined with the performances and Paul Sorley’s lighting, this is a haunting, unforgettable and magnetic piece of theatre.