Poke
Two stars
Wuthering Heights
Four stars
Arches, Glasgow
The Arches' Platform 18 award is a barometer of what
the next generation of theatremakers is thinking. Where last year's recipients reflected
on the legacy of Margaret Thatcher,
the latest double-bill brings together two writer-directors with an urgent interest
in gender. In Poke, Amanda Monfrooe borrows from Greek myth to consider female
oppression, while in an all-male Wuthering Heights that owes as much to Kate
Bush as Emily Bronte,
Peter McMaster considers masculine role models.
Eccentric in conception and execution, Poke is
set at the time of the "great madness" when rape has become so
ubiquitous that women are grateful if it happens to them only once. In a
mythological rocky landscape, the gods choose two women to mother a girl child
and send her back into the world of men. In an effort to protect the girl, the
women take on the role of goddesses, one representing air and water, the other
flora and fauna, but become locked in a destructive environmental battle. It
ends badly.
Monfrooe bills the story as an allegory, but
without knowing who the women are, it's hard to tell what it's an allegory of.
In between the clunky scene changes and odd pauses, however, there are two
parallel speeches, poetic and emotionally raw, that are shocking in their contrast.
One is about consensual sex, the other about a violent rape. They make
everything else look fanciful.
Far more assured is Wuthering Heights, a
thrillingly theatrical series of sketches about fathers, sons, machismo,
tenderness and identity. It bounces in and out of Bronte's book, preferring to
describe the male lineage of Heathcliff's horse than to offer a coherent
narrative, and draws equally from the life experiences of the five actors. It's
honest, inventive, beautifully choreographed and, even if a tad unresolved,
evidence of a bold and distinctive talent.
Mark Fisher
Arches, Glasgow, until 27 April, 0141 565 1000.
At Traverse, Edinburgh, 1–3 May, 0131 228 1404. Details: http://www.thearches.co.uk
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