The Lir, ABSOLUT Fringe 2011
Sept 13-17
My review of Follow
coming up just as soon as I see another seahorse ...
Rarely have artists
adorned a theatre space with such invention and humility as Willfredd have done
with Follow, co-created by performer Shane
O’Reilly, taking us on a journey through a rich theatre vocabulary of light,
sound and gesture, all to impart the experience of being deaf.
It starts with O’Reilly,
patient and compelling, signing the act of drawing a circle on the ground with
a stick. He makes good use of time and explanation so that those of unfamiliar
with the grammar are not left behind. A scene involving a boy and his
classmates in a Christian Brothers school demonstrates the playfulness of the
physical language, complemented by the heavy reverb of Jack Cawley’s guitar queazing
his stomach as he queues for the bathroom. The effect is more vibration than
melody; the circumstance of sound when you’re deaf. Furthermore, the principal
of sight in such a condition inspires Sarah Jane Shiels’ design, as she throws
pearls of white and blue light across the stage like breadcrumbs, leading O’Reilly
and us through the darkness.
Director Sophie
Motley’s production gleams with innovation. One of the most precious moments is
planted in a segment where a woman watches a wildlife programme about clownfish.
Then in a mesmerising scene where O’Reilly’s schoolboy is shoved underwater,
his body, with all its fluency in emblems and symbols, slowly becomes an angelfish. “Deaf people belong underwater” he says; a most beautiful and
curious metaphor. It’s ‘underwater’, where Cawley finds melody with dew drops of
piano and in Shiels’ sapphire glow, that we glimpse an incredible potential
within ourselves for endless communication no matter what condition we’re in.
Follow offers understanding and revelation
and admirably it’s after justice as well. A scene where a deaf individual is
told by an insurance man “It’s not my fault you’re deaf” is spelled out
thoroughly as if a grammar lesson. A woman desperate to find her children
cannot communicate with the help services. There’s a devastating scene where a
father, whose speech is captioned on a screen, asks his son (O’Reilly) to turn
around to test his hearing, and having still not been heard after screaming at
him he leaves his son behind before he turns back.
Follow is the result of a true think
tank of ingenuity. When O’Reilly steps into that circumference he has drawn,
holding his hand high in the light, we know new languages, human and
theatrical, are ready to be harnessed.
What did
everybody else think?
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