Tuesday, September 26, 2006

"Don Quixote" (Catch up - May 2006)

I wasn’t particularly familiar with the source material but it has been really brought up to date by Theatre Modo in this performance in the Citizens Circle Studio. Now this is a very small space, and blimey didn’t they use every single inch of it! It’s a hugely physical performance for all three cast members and I’m sure they must be covered in bruises at the end of each performance - I wasn’t alone in grimacing in pain as they threw themselves around the stage.

Don Quixote is now living in what appears to be a tenement flat with his best mate and his secret love, spending his time in a fantasy world, at times represented by his obsession with computer games. We watch as his friends at first humour his fantasies before realising things are going too far. It is all wonderfully realised as we witness his challenges and torments, both real and imagined. It is a well written piece but in truth this is all about the performances and they are hugely entertaining. For me this was bordering on experimental theatre, so the company may well have misses as well as hits, but on the basis of this I’ll definitely be checking them out.

As I said, we saw this at the Citizens, but it was also toured, and given the physicality of the piece I think in future we’d try and catch them at the Cumbernauld Theatre where they can make use of a substantailly larger performance area.