Told By An Idiot-phoria is currently sweeping the country. It's not difficult to see why. Cheekily post-modern in their approach, theyfit perfectly with the pervading cynicism of our time. They also happen to be wonderful performers backed up by a superb creative team.
I Weep at My Piano, their fourth production since they took the Edinburgh Festival by storm five years ago with On the Verge of Exploding, shows a company on the verge indeed of following Theatre de Complicite as the people's number-one favourite performance group.
Originally commissioned by Northern Stage for Sheffield's Lorca festival last year, this tribute to the Spanish playwright and his friendships with Salvador Dali and Luis Bunuel, carries a kind of magpie absurdity you might have expected had you crossed Jacques Tati with Monty Python. It ends, however, on an emotional note that completely catches you by the throat: a pile of stones, a pair of shoes and the diminutive Hayley Carmichael (Lorca's spirit), sharing a bench with ''sightseers'' Richard Clews and Stephen Harper muttering matter-of-factly ''it must be here somewhere''. (Lorca's body was never found).
The moment has tremendous force not least because of the mostly lighthearted commonplaces that have gone before; Harper's Bunuel with his vocabulary of little jumps, walks and hops; Clews's beanpole Dali, half-wizard, half-crooning guitarist. And Carmichael, the born clown with the sweet-faced, aching innocence reminiscent of the great Italian film actress, Giulietta Masina.
Paul Hunter's mosaic of funny, sudden, silly and beautifully-blended moments (Iain Johnstone's soundscape captures all the melancholy as well as the fire) more truly evokes the spirit of the playwright than many a more ''realistic'' treatment might. Very, very fine.
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