October 11, 2009
You Need Me, a multicultural storytelling theatre company, have already caught the eye of a senior director at the National Theatre, and from the superb performance they gave at the North Wall Arts Centre last night, it’s not difficult to see why. Newly formed, their work ‘How it Ended’ has enjoyed sell-out performances at the Camden People’s Theatre and the Edinburgh Fringe, and is now touring the UK.
The poignant progression from intense first love to disenchantment and alienation is a familiar story, unfolding before us in the intimate darkness of the studio space with intensity and pace. But this is not just imaginative visual storytelling – sound is terribly important, whether created by the actors as chorus, musicians and singers, or taking the form of unexpected sound effects (down to the constant ticking of a clock). As the emotional mood is heightened through the medium of up-tempo popular song, it is not difficult to see how easily Lilian (Fran Moulds) could have been swept to the altar in under three weeks after meeting Raymond (Roger Ribo), a young French trainee RAF pilot at a dance. Lilian is eighteen years old, vivacious and unawakened, living cheek by jowl with four sisters and under the thumb of the eldest, Nerys (Emily Watson Howes, who also directs). Lilian is pregnant and naive, but also determined to accompany Raymond to his mother’s home in France and make a new life there. Songs in Basque and a torrent of French dialogue between Raymond's newly widowed mother (Kate Mounce) and her son emphasise the contrast between Pontypridd and Lilian's new life. She finds herself warily squaring up to her new mother-in-law in broken French - a stark contrast to the emotional directness and animal intimacy of her old life, sharing a bed with four sisters.
The bleak birth of a baby girl confounds rather than confirms Lilian’s emotional ties. The closeness and love she longs for (signified by her action of sinking her face into her sister Nerys’ jumper, which she rarely takes off) - is most demonstrable between Raymond, his mother, and the baby. Lilian is the outcast – depressed and alien.
The brilliant use of a length of white lace (sculpted to present us with, at first, the swaddled new born baby, and then - as the bundle is taken from Lilian’s arms - unravelled to form the ocean she must cross) portrays the dissolving of all of Lilian's hopes, but also her journey's end: back where she began, but heavy with grief, and with one less life than she left Wales to bear.
The poignant progression from intense first love to disenchantment and alienation is a familiar story, unfolding before us in the intimate darkness of the studio space with intensity and pace. But this is not just imaginative visual storytelling – sound is terribly important, whether created by the actors as chorus, musicians and singers, or taking the form of unexpected sound effects (down to the constant ticking of a clock). As the emotional mood is heightened through the medium of up-tempo popular song, it is not difficult to see how easily Lilian (Fran Moulds) could have been swept to the altar in under three weeks after meeting Raymond (Roger Ribo), a young French trainee RAF pilot at a dance. Lilian is eighteen years old, vivacious and unawakened, living cheek by jowl with four sisters and under the thumb of the eldest, Nerys (Emily Watson Howes, who also directs). Lilian is pregnant and naive, but also determined to accompany Raymond to his mother’s home in France and make a new life there. Songs in Basque and a torrent of French dialogue between Raymond's newly widowed mother (Kate Mounce) and her son emphasise the contrast between Pontypridd and Lilian's new life. She finds herself warily squaring up to her new mother-in-law in broken French - a stark contrast to the emotional directness and animal intimacy of her old life, sharing a bed with four sisters.
The bleak birth of a baby girl confounds rather than confirms Lilian’s emotional ties. The closeness and love she longs for (signified by her action of sinking her face into her sister Nerys’ jumper, which she rarely takes off) - is most demonstrable between Raymond, his mother, and the baby. Lilian is the outcast – depressed and alien.
The brilliant use of a length of white lace (sculpted to present us with, at first, the swaddled new born baby, and then - as the bundle is taken from Lilian’s arms - unravelled to form the ocean she must cross) portrays the dissolving of all of Lilian's hopes, but also her journey's end: back where she began, but heavy with grief, and with one less life than she left Wales to bear.