‘Adler and Gibb’ seems a departure from Tim Crouch’s previous work. For one thing, this piece is framed as a 'drama-doc’ of sorts, but to dismiss this complex piece as merely exploring (yet again) post-modern ‘truth’ would be to do it – and yourselves – a disservice.
Crouch does indeed wrestle with the truth here, and makes us do the same, and it’s the meticulousness of his endeavour that ultimately impresses.
Janet Adler, artist, encounters Margaret Gibb, social scientist, at a gallery opening. They embark on a profound and lasting relationship from which a good deal of art arises, which the pair destroy, having chosen to abandon New York and its art scene for a life of rural isolation. Adler dies suddenly and suspicion clings to Gibb who becomes more reclusive.
That, in very brief summary, is both what is known of the pair and what Crouch presents us with. It is not, of course, the whole story, and Crouch’s ‘Adler and Gibb’ is very much concerned with what may or may not be the ‘truth’ in any story.
An actress intending to play Adler arrives with her coach at what was the home of Adler and Gibb, and in attempting to break in, they encounter the very much alive Margaret Gibb.
What ensues is a circling around various accounts of ‘what happened’ and a musing on the nature of veracity, accuracy and reliability of witness.
Although Crouch has raised these themes before, this has often been done with only himself for company on stage, or in a less directly identifiable way, which is another way to say that here Crouch is using a recognisably ‘dramatic’ form to examine the ways in which we seek to dramatise our own lives, and, by implication, to question whether we ought to be doing so.
The validity and integrity of Crouch’s interrogation of the temporal and fleeting nature of what we laughingly refer to as ‘reality’ is not in question throughout this piece, but, for this reviewer at least, to frame his question against the backdrop of the equally fleeting and ephemeral art scene of late twentieth century New York seemed to undercut rather than reinforce the argument.
Times: 3-27 August (not 4, 8, 15, 22), 5.15pm £15 (£12)