Reviews

With bales of hay on each side of the proscenium arch and dances of the hoedown and square dance variety, SQUIDS effectively brought the bucolic charm of Oklahoma!’s turn-of-the-century story to life. We all knew Rodgers and Hammerstein’s score as a classic of the Broadway musical theatre, but in this production it was Hammerstein’s book adaptation which deserved the laurels.

Every now and again theatre companies such as the Genesian, that usually produce dramas, decide to indulge in a musical. Not necessarily one that is well known nor one that requires a large cast, a multi-piece band or a big stage – but a musical, nevertheless. Our House is that sort of musical. It can be staged with a small cast (fourteen in this production), has relatively uncomplicated music (which could easily be have been recorded to disc rather than using a live band); and the action can be adapted to a smaller stage.

Storytelling on stage can take many forms. Sometimes we get ‘the full picture’, in chronological order, from all characters involved. Sometimes we get the individual perspective of a narrator - possibly an unreliable one. In the case of A Steady Rain, we have Nick Fagan (as Denny) and Rohan Watts (as Joey) comprising the entirety of the cast, sometimes interacting directly with each other, more often speaking in monologue to the audience, painting a vivid portrait of the seediness and moral corruption that police work can entail.

This contemporary circus performance makes an explicit crossover with performance art and dance. The circus acts are infused with stylised movement and gesture and generate an unusual relationship with some very ordinary, everyday objects. These objects are recontextualised and played with in order to accentuate the dynamics of the acrobatic feats.