Stage: Married to the job

Gecko
The Wedding
created by Amit Lahavwith Mario Garcia Patrón Alvarez, Lucia Chocarro, Madeleine Fairminer, Vanessa Guevara Flores, Ryen Perkins-Gangnes, Saju Hari, Wai Shan Vivian Luk, Miguel Torres Umba, Dan Watson
music Dave Price • sets/costumes Rhys Jarman
lighting Joe Hornsby • sound Jon Everett
Sadler's Wells East, Stratford • 21-24.Jan.26 ★★★★

As part of MimeLondon, the international physical theatre company Gecko reimagines its acclaimed 2017 stage production exploring the contracts we enter into as members of society. This is a provocative piece, but it's also a lot of fun, bristling with wit as it playfully punctures imagery and ideas that we take for granted. Using marriage as a metaphor, the show is a work of art that doesn't need to be interpreted specifically. Instead, it's best to sit back and enjoy the astonishing skill in this eye-catching, emotionally resonant performance.

The setting is surreal, as new people are delivered onto the stage down a chute, put into a wedding dress and sent to work with a briefcase. Workers then spiral around, making phone calls and conducting business in squares of light on the stage, trying to fit in as they aspire for promotion. They speak to each other in a variety of languages that add to a richly dense music and soundscape, with thoughts and feelings revealed using both full physicality and the tiniest movements and pauses. The loose, kinetic choreography is a fascinating mix of personal and corporate expression.

Along the way a few characters emerge, including a married couple struggling with the demands of their life and a sparky family of immigrant buskers who live in a suitcase and try to integrate with society. Momentous events pepper this 75-minute show, including a few wildly energetic, ethnically charged weddings that create a striking sense of community. This adds a hopefulness to scenes that depict a life constrained by rules and expectations, including moments in which people are literally boxed in or thrown out.

Every element of this show is expertly assembled, including the timeless, shifting costumes and inventive sets and props that cleverly light up the cast members. Other lighting emerges from the wings, creating a luxuriantly inky blackness around the cast. The cumulative effect is dazzling, especially as the show continually offers honest commentary about how social structures can crush our humanity while also providing avenues for individual expectation. And it's in the paths to escape that the show finds a profound sense of joy.

For info, SADLER'S WELLS >

photos by Malachy Luckie • 21.Jan.26

Stage: Animal magnetism

AKRAM KHAN COMPANY
Jungle Book Reimagined
director-choreographer Akram Khan
writer Tariq Jordan with Sharon Clark
dancers Lucia Chocarro, Tom Davis-Dunn, Harry Theadora Foster, Thomasin Gulgec, Max Revell, Matthew Sandiford, Pui Yung Shum, Fukiko Takase, Holly Vallis, Vanessa Vince-Pang, Jan Mikaela Villanueva, Luke Watson
composer Jocelyn Pook • animation Adam Smith, Nick Hillel
sound Gareth Fry • lighting Michael Hulls
Sadler's Wells, London • 4-15.Apr.23

Mixing dance with theatre, this mesmerising physical production takes Rudyard Kipling's classic stories and places them into the near future, redefining both the settings and characters to deliberately add present-day resonance. Akram Khan inventively stirs animation, music and spoken word in with viscerally charged movement to reveal timely themes that carry a powerful punch. So even if the dialog and storytelling are overstated (perhaps to reach a younger audience), it echoes an important message about the connections between humans and nature.

The story is now set when rising sea levels have forced humans to abandon cities, which have been repopulated by animals that have escaped from zoos, circuses and labs. When she falls from a refugee raft, Mowgli washes up in one of these cities and is adopted by a pack of bickering dogs. A human hunter is prowling the landscape, and they need her to help them avoid him. Mowgli also befriends Bagheera, a formerly pampered panther, and ex-dancing bear Baloo. When Mowgli is kidnapped by the Bandar-log, escaped lab monkeys who long to become more human, Bagheera and Baloo turn to the python Kaa to rescue her.

Dressed in red vests and grey harem pants, the dancers become various characters using physical posture, moving in rhythm to their dialog. Khan's demanding choreography is athletic and of course animalistic, mixing acrobatic movement with dance to create a strikingly vibrant atmosphere, shifting through encounters that are tender and violent. Eye-catching and surprising, the scenes feature both individual moments and some particularly gorgeous group numbers. Along the way, some performers emerge as standouts, most notably Thomasin Gulgec's loose-limbed turn as the enthusiastic, warm-hearted Baloo.

A complex audio mix includes music, dialog and media clips, while the on-stage performers are surrounded by strikingly rendered lighting and projection, including animated characters who interact with the dancers. The effect is magical, both dazzling visually and strongly emotional in the way the familiar story emerges from a fresh new angle. This is a beautiful collaboration between a range of talented artists who have found creative ways to work together. So if the voiceover sometimes gets preachy or obvious, there's plenty of beauty to engage with on a variety of levels. And it leaves us with some new thoughts about the impact we have on our planet and how finding common ground is the only hope for a future.

For details, visit SADLER'S WELLS >

photos by Ambra Vernuccio • 5.Apr.23