ARLINGTON | SCOTTISH TOUR @ TRON THEATRE, GLASGOW
★★★★
“A world of surveillance that terrifyingly requires no great leap of the imagination…”
Arlington, Enda Walsh’s near-future dystopian love story, is a curious beast that wears its Orwellian influences with pride. Inveigling, steeped in threat, but not without humour, this new production from Scottish dance-theatre company Shotput is an intriguing mix of drama, mystery and movement.
The mystery comes from Walsh’s enigmatic writing. In a room in a mysterious high rise block, Isla waits, a microphone dangling from the ceiling to record her reports. Outside, a young man sits, watching her on a bank of monitors, encouraging her to speak her thoughts and to tell her stories, then observing as they come to life around her.
Isla has been held in this room since she was four, many years ago now. She came here from the city with her family, all of whom have since left, disappearing one by one. However, as Isla waits for her number to be called, she knows what she saw outside the window. Something she wasn’t meant to. And that changes everything. As her turn to leave nears she finally understanding… and the young man faces a stark decision.
Described as ‘a show about telling stories that slyly activates our human impulse for narrative’, Arlington unfolds over 90 minutes in three acts. Exploring oppression, loneliness and the power of human connection, it’s a transfixing puzzle, a jigsaw of people, places and emotions to be pieced together.
As Isla, Aisha Goodman sets the mood, colouring Walsh’s flowing prose perfectly in the first act. Her soothing tones paint a word picture of the place of her dreams. It’s beautifully contemplative storytelling, her longing gloriously enhanced by Cat Myers’ hypnotic dreamscape score, while the almost immersive video design of Rob Willoughby pulls you in further.
Alex Austin, as the accident prone Young Man, brings moments of lightness and laughter to Walsh’s repressive nightmare as he bonds with his charge before later capturing the anguish of an existence robbed of social interaction in Act 3. Finding himself now contained in the waiting room, bloodied and driven to perform for a disembodied voice promising the reward of sleep, Austin gives a visceral, compelling performance. Ann Louise Ross is chilling as the voice of authority.
Completing the cast, dancer Jack Anderson, expresses his disconnection through movement alone in Act 2. Confined by the limitations of the waiting room, he sways, glides, prances and ultimately prowls his confinement. A caged animal, filling space and time with the choreography of Lucy Ireland and Jim Manganello, he moves from a languid awakening to finding himself firmly in ‘the danger zone where the dancer becomes the dance’, to borrow from Michael Sembello. It’s an aerobic workout to a thumping heartbeat that connects at an instinctive level and quickly has heads bobbing in the audience.
A visual and aural treat, this production is a prescient vision of a world where there are just ‘the kept’ and ‘the keepers’ – a world of surveillance that terrifyingly requires no great leap of the imagination to see becoming a reality in the not too distant future.
Full tour details and tickets here.
