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Invisible Man
Directors and Designers - Kai Fischer and Matthew Lenton
Digital Imaging - Chris Rowland
Sound Designer - John Anderson
Company - Vanishing Point
Venue & Dates - see end of review for dates
and reviews of other Vanishing Point productions
Reviewer - Thelma Good
Freeing our imagination with very few words
With very few words and two highly skilled physical actors, Vanishing
Point's Invisible Man tells the story of a husband who goes away, his
wife who makes violins and the escaped prisoner who knocks on their door.
They live in a country where identity cards have to be shown, wire fences
mark its boundaries and a knock at the door is always something to be
feared. The husband reads a Paris Match with a tropical island cover -
an image of escape. Based on a true story and with the production's atmospheric
music, sounds and lighting the cast of two with the occasional addition
of a dark stranger let the narrative come to us. It's like one of those
rare foreign films where you realise you've not looked at the subtitles
in ages but you're gripped by and understanding what you see.
Itaxso Moreno is the diminutive but wiry in spirit wife, Keith
Macpherson the husband who plays the violin for their dark stranger
when he makes his calls to purchase the instruments. Macpherson
also plays the escaping prisoner. By imaginative direction and performances
we're drawn into their tense lives where escape is dangerous for all.
It shifts from scenes of domestic closeness as when the wife and husband
playfully tussle to read the magazine they hid from the dark stranger's
eyes, to distress when the husband packs to leave. Full of incident as
the house floods, or as the wife reacts to the man, but not the one she
was hoping for, appearing at the door, the production charms but also
makes you fearful for the outcome.
Using techniques we more often see in the best of theatre for younger
audiences Kai Fischer and Matthew Lenton have the characters move inside
and out so that interiors become exteriors, the action on stage releases
our imaginations. Sometimes the man goes out through the wooden door set
in the dark walled set, sometimes the walls dissolve to reveal the wire
boundary and the gaily lit lights of affluent freedom beyond. Sometimes
the house itself ceases to be there as the husband casts off his clothes
and slides into the river through the window or later the wife and the
man she has taken in go out into the forest to get wood for another violin.
Occasionally the production falters, the dream sequences of the husband
on his island feel just too superficially jokey with their puppet savages,
and the appearance of the stranger through a door you thought only led
to the rest of the house fails to fit with the rest of this overall very
accomplished production which stimulates our imagination.
© Thelma Good 13 June 2002
Reviews of other Vanishing Point Productions - Stars
Beneath The Sea 2003 | A
Brief History Of Time 2003 | Glimpse
2001|
Tour Dates for Invisible Man
13,14,15 June at 8pm Edinburgh Traverse Theatre 0131
228 1404
20 June at 7.30pm Leeds Metropolitan University Studio Theatre
0113 283 5998
27,28,29 June at 8pm Glasgow The Tron Theatre 0141 552
4267
Tour ends
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