Hypatia Avenue

FRANTICALLY ASSEMBLED BLOG ENTRY

Phwoar. I think that is the best word to describe a totally amazing theatre experience. I can’t call Peepshow a play, or a musical or a performance piece because it defies all of that; it’s an experience – and holy fuck, it was a grand one. I won’t babble on about it too much because it’s the kind of theatre that literally defies words: Frantic Assembly take a story and tell it in words and then in movement when words aren’t enough. There were times in Peepshow when the whole audience were gaping open-mouthed and broken-hearted at what we were seeing: all the unspoken and unspeakable things being played out to us in breath-taking movement and music, going beyond all conventional expression.

And the soundtrack! All by Lamb, with the completely unexpected live singing of the cast at certain points – yet again, an original Frantic Assembly touch, getting the actors to sing at points where the emotion and tension was so high, normal speech and sounds just can’t convey what was really going on. The mixture of Lamb, unique Frantic Assembly physicalisation of story and feeling, an amazing set that was two floors high with a set of lift doors in the middle which the cast at one point crawled all over, leaping and climbing and twisting up and over and through trapdoors and cupboards and under beds, through windows, over each other so they made a complete circuit of the structurewas utterly, utterly amazing.

And the cast was damn fine sexy too.

Am seriously considering getting back into contemporary dance (not that I was so “in” contemporary dance before, but enough to miss it, so no mocking please…) Am feeling the urge to fling myself about to evocative, come-down, chill-out music while abusing the furniture and my immediate surroundings in a contemporary dance kind of way. Please take this as a warning, all of you out there. Apologies in advance while I flex my creaking, sleep-deprived, nicotine and alcohol riddled, mashed potatoes and bag of lard dumping ground of a body.

::swings arms around in lame attempt at “dance”:: Ouch.