Lamentastic!

Hey guys, just finished watching the film of Lament that Rachael kindly organised for us and I just thought I'd jot down some quick points that I noted after watching a whole performance from the company.

• Continuous theme of repeating a certain gesture. I know we discussed this when we watched parts of Timeless, but it's not until you watch a full feature that you realise the extent they go to in order to link all the fragmented scenes together.
• The use of overlapping and smooth transactions between each scene in order to create a coherant piece of theatre.
• When watching we noted a technique which none of us could understand where it involved long pauses randomly during the middle of certain extracts for no apparent reasons. It did kind of look as though they had forgotten their lines but I can't think of a real reason for doing this! Anyone have any ideas of can shed any light as to why they would do this?
• The importance of multimedia as a backdrop. For example, in Lament there was the showing of the shopping channel and the news in the background which intertwined with the specific scene.
• I think everyone will enjoy the play after watching it. I know that I did. For some reason it becomes much clearer on stage and I know that some people didn't enjoy the fragmented nature of the script. Although it is still very jumpy and often hard to stay focused on, it is helped by the fluidity between the scenes.
• The ending for the show is very important. It seems very choreographed and often sums up the intentions of the show. Even though I wasn't really listening to the monologues, the combination of movement, music and sounds from the actors created a real emotional response for some reason.

Anyway, that was just some quick thoughts I had and I would really recommend watching this one especially as it was such a disappointing read (for me personally!)

Claire Stainer