Theatre

Ockham's Razor

Alan Hindle | Monday 5 March, 2012 09:20

Three people adrift. Such a simple idea, but there are hundreds of possible stories in this elegant premise. Ockham’s Razor, an aerial theatre company combining circus skills with physical theatre and physics, tell several of these stories in a tight thirty minutes, but they leave all interpretations so open the audience can imagine the hundreds in between.

Two women and a man dance with gravity on a grid suspended above the stage. Swooping and clambering with the grace of dancers, the performers can manipulate their flying stage with subtle shifts of weight, but every move has to be shared between them. Love triangles, power struggles, rivalries, but also vulnerability, mutual respect and cooperation, Arc’s themes are beautifully married to the techniques and circus skills used to tell their stories.

Two other pieces presented, Memento Mori and Every Action were every bit as cleverly done, but for me Arc had the most emotional power. The last, Every Action… is played out on a long length of rope between four characters. It was the flashiest in terms of acrobatic technique, and I could see why it rounds out the show. It was also the funniest, a big finale. Arc, though had more depth for me. The kids, however, loved it. On the night I saw the show the audience was primarily students, teenagers, probably on an official outing, but they were held rapt by the poise and physical power of the performers.

Artsdepot is a great venue. It’s mindboggling they should have been forced to scramble for funding last year, when they are the fulcrum of the arts in that area. This was my first time there and won’t be my last. But I do have to manage my travelling time a bit better. Finchley must be a huge patch of land. I had no idea it would take so long to get out to Wood Green Park tube station from central London. Give yourself plenty of time to get there. I gave myself an hour and was still nine minutes late for the show. The front of house staff kindly bit their tongues and ground their teeth but slipped me in anyway. Sweethearts.

Ockham’s Razor will be back at Artsdepot at the end of the month, 29-31 March, with Something in the Air, a collaboration with Oily Cart. This is an interactive aerial show specifically geared for kids with Autistic Spectrum Disorder, but no doubt a cool show for all. More details at ockhamsrazor.co.uk and artdepot.co.uk.

Next up at Artsdepot, on 10 March is John Peel’s Shed, an Edinburgh Fringe success by John Osborne (not the Look Back in Anger one) about loving the radio and its lost champion.

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