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Chariot Of Light
Director - Benno Plassman
Assistant Director - Martin Danziger
Writer - Anita Sullivan
Designer - Alex Rigg
Sound/Music Composer - Giles Lamb
Lighting Designer - Fabrizio Crisafulli
Choreographer - Jane Simpson
Company - The Working Party with community performers Community
Education Youth Group, Bo'ness Academy Lunchtime Drama Group, Jiu-Jitsu
Academy and Irene Langley's School of Dance (Disco Group)
Venue - Bo'ness and Kinneil Railway
Dates - 13, 14 & 15 September 2002 at 7:30pm - 9pm
Reviewer - Thelma Good
Most stretching and extraordinary
This promenade performance starts in a coal yard with lots of little yellow
mites of children scrambling over the coal, fighting and taunting a young
man Phateon, Robbie Jack, who's dressed in a sheepskin coat and
sporting a devil may care attitude. He's mocked when he says his father
is the Sun God, his mother Toni Frutin, twirls into view and she
urges us off with him to see his dad.
Going to see a God is a bit of a risk, and in these Godless times getting
a sense of awe is hard. Chariot of Light often touches close to this feeling.
Even the teenage audience determined to giggle at those they know taking
part can't destroy the overall feeling of being transported some where
powerful and out of this world. The sounds and steam of a coal fired engine
fired up, dancers who draw us on, the gathering dusk, the minimal lighting,
music, sounds text and strong costumes and props all making the atmosphere.
They all pull us on and into an imaginative world where humans can see
Gods.
Phateon's father greets him and us. He offers him anything he wants, not
bargaining for Phateon's desire to drive the Sungod's chariot across the
heavens but he keeps his word and we follow him on to the platform and
deity's vehicle pulsing with power. Eagerly we get on, human curiosity
impelling us and find safety instructions in case of crash landing in
the sea and announcements suggesting we don't lean out of the window or
the solar wind will behead you!
Phateon loses control of the chariot and we have to go to see the King
of the Gods, following a newly created path where voices rise as though
they are under the ground. In the most stunning setting with the increasing
sound of the roars of belching fires of Grangemouth lightening the night
sky we are lead past the distressed Mother Earth Spirits to an audience
with the God of all, Nick Underwood. In our company he sees the
lesser Gods and bids us all to decide Phateon's fate. Only if he dies
will light return to the Earth he tells us, standing an extraordinary
blue figure, the mud flats of desolation around him and the terrible,
incessant fires behind. Returning the way we came, we watch the stovepipe
hatted Sungod, Alistair Edwards, sadly playing an elegy for his
son on a cello sitting on the engine's coal box, his outline shadowed
visible against the steam. There's a sense of unity, of having joined
in some ritual performed in the dark as we read the Armageddon Headlined
Bo'ness Sun on the repaired chariot.
It's a production which weaves in in surprising patterns, facts, and history
of the area and our universe, and astonishing use of the potent energies
of steam and chemical works. If all the scenes and performers had given
performances as intense as the scenery and professional cast we would
feel we had entered a world of frightening power. It's strange to say
as a critic I'm relieved they didn't manage that - when theatre comes
close to a religious act, a slight falling short is a forgivable sin.
As a professional/community collaboration Chariot of Light is one
of the most stretching and extraordinary I have experienced, light years
and intelligent universes away from the played-out, dull format of the
community play.
© Thelma Good 15 September 2002. - Published on EdinburghGuide.com
Professional cast
Phaeton - Robbie Jack
Phateon's Mother - Toni Frutin
Sungod - Alistair Edwards
King of the Gods/Gaffer/ Stationmaster - Nick Underwood
The Working Party can be contacted on 0141 423 4876 and will be
doing a new production based on the Odyssey at the Arches Glasgow in October
2002.
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