I’m sure you don’t mean to write off all of the Mime Festival, or all group-devised works, but your piece does sound a little like that.
Admittedly, on the one hand I know what you mean. I saw Compangnie Philippe Genty last night and it was a big disappointment — a sequence of very impressive images but with little narrative or emotion to hold it together into something I could feel involved with. Like a dance piece with the dance removed.
I also saw Faulty Optic’s production at the ICA, part of which was quite entertaining puppet work, but some of it was a slow meander with a video camera around a large set they’d built, the images projected on a screen. Not the most involving experience I’ve had.
On the other hand Inspector Sands and Stamping Ground Theatre’s ‘Hysteria’ was wonderful — funny and involving. A devised work, but given that it involved a fair bit of spoken text it’s perhaps pushing the limits of what could be counted as mime.
I guess I’m saying that seeming to write so much theatre off because of one show is a bit mean. As with mime or devised works, the number of disappointing scripted plays I’ve attended greatly outnumber the excellent productions, but I still keep going back in hope.
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