New company Hurrah
Hurrah have taken the story of Jerome Kerviel, French rogue trader who
lost €5 billion in illegal future tradings and have devised around the notion of
greed, guilt, blame and redemption in a physical manifestation of the themes inherent
in this story, more than a retelling of the narrative.
It’s a nice ensemble piece and although it lacks coherence
in its form- how we get from one idea to the next is tenuous- it does produce
some lovely images: the cocaine snorting, the violence, the use of the door
frames to create new spaces and games, standing on the ledge. What Hurrah
Hurrah do well is take the essence of the idea and play with its physical form
to create committed, interesting characters with intensity and dimensions.
What is lacking from the performance is the critical eye of
a director who can see the big picture and how it sits as a whole. The gorilla
theatre style of the actors’ cooperative certainly allows for the group to
input ideas as a collective experience but it has not yet mastered the art of
finding the cohesion it is searching for. This means that the rhythm is disjointed;
the engagement of audience is as inconsistent as the connection between images and we find
ourselves working hard to stay with the ideas and message. But there is
something animalistic about what is being expressed on stage that outweighs its
inconsistency and allows us to sometimes
simply sit back and enjoy the message of man as primitive beast whose survival
in a contemporary world thrives on lust for money and power, regardless of its
effect on the community.
Trade is a piece
that allows the company to showcase their skills and experiment with ideas in
an interesting way. Once they refine its expression and cohesion, their work
will hopefully become a sophisticated physical manifestation of current world
issues that will appeal to a broader audience that moves it beyond the small
community space and into the mainstream.
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