Theatre review: Merchant City Festival, Glasgow
Surge Festival - Merchant City, Glasgow
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So, when I arrive in Hutcheson Street, it takes me a moment to notice the row of seven people standing on the road, each holding a suitcase, and dressed in the universal uniform of 20th century European migrants – shabby suits for the men, fitted coat for the woman. They are the Kamchatka Company of Barcelona; and quietly, insistently, they begin to advance down the street. There are interactions with the crowd, pleading or playful. Then on the corner, they begin a long encounter with some builders’ scaffolding that they finally cannot complete without the audience’s help; before leaving with a chilling mimed hint of the steam trains that, in the 1940’s, carried so many travellers to oblivion.
Kamchatka’s theme is a familiar one; but what is striking is how, in a street-theatre world, famous for broad-brush clowning, they consciously use a much more naturalistic and intimate form of acting, based on the intensity of their facial expressions, to create deep bonds with the audience, and to mount a searching challenge to negative attitudes to migrants.
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Hide AdElsewhere, Fadunito of Barcelona’s cheeky remote-controlled wheelchair offers a powerful response to traditional attitudes to disability; and in Joe Shipman’s The Hoods, from England, three absurdly exaggerated clown-like yobs in hoodies swagger around noising up the locals.
And although the occasional festival-goer looked alarmed at turning a corner and encountering a moment of dramatic intensity, most seemed delighted; as if there was something satisfying about coming out for an afternoon’s fun, and finding at its core a pulse of artistic seriousness, and a reminder that being fully human is a complex business, even on a hot summer’s day.