York Theatre Royal – 15 February 2019
Reviewed by Marcus Richardson
2**
Dance Double Bill at the York Theatre Royal was an interesting experience to say the least. I would like to start off saying that the name of the show was rather misleading, as I would rather call the performances physical theatre. The first performance was a group of five dancers improving a dance on stage, for me this was the better of the two performances. The second was based on a performer called Plastic who changed himself, this didn’t really flick any switches for me. I love dance, I love bodies, I like how they move and how you can make something entertaining with them, so why didn’t I fall in love with this show?
The First performance made me laugh at points and it was interesting to watch the performer create the show as we were watch it. For me the saving grace of this performance was the comedy element, they were having fun on stage and we were laughing at that. The performance lasted about 30mins which I think is the best time for a experimental piece such as this, however I couldn’t bring myself to really like it. I don’t if I was expecting a choreographed dance or If it was too out there for me too enjoy. I did enjoy watching how each performer worked with each other and they did work well as a team to create a bizarre piece about room service and Chardonnay.
The Second performance did not entertain me what so ever, Plastic Soul by Seke Chimutengwende, followed a character called Plastic who would change himself to be a better performer, but at one point he was an atom or an insect. I really hate to use the saying as I understand that this is theatre, but it just felt too arty-farty; we had a man on stage speaking rather loudly into a mic about who Plastic is, other than that there was little movement in body. It was incredibly hard to watch and I think if the performance was different the message could’ve actually resonated with some people, but faces in the audience were like mine. Confused and bored. This performance was supposed to finish at 9:15 but ended up going to 9:45, this extra 30 mins did feel dragged out because I wanted to leave, we were seeing pretty much the same thing again and again.
I generally love experimental theatre, I was people to break the boundaries and question everything. But this show for me felt like it was being artistic for artistic sake, the only saving grace was the comedy from the first performance. I could never label this as dance as it didn’t have the fluidity and rhythm you would expect. I would rather called the first performance physical theatre, and as it comes to the second performance I have no words what to call it. I hate to write a negative review because I appreciate the time and effort put into each performance but with this show I was not entertained and I didn’t really get anything out of it.