Can You Avoid Your Own Obsessions?

Shopping at M & S today, nothing exciting.

Play for the evening: The Red Shoes by the company Kneehigh. In 2009 I saw Kneehigh’s production of Don John, a retelling of the “Don Juan” story as if it was set in Thatcher’s England. It was set to music, highly sexualized (it was Don Juan after all) and extremely visually stunning. Tonight I saw their interpretation of the classic folk tale, The Red Shoes. I went in with the memory of the sexy and sad rock and roll show I saw two years ago. And although I knew this was a completely different story I still left shrugging my shoulders. The reason being that it seemed to have run out of steam and seemed to have used up all of their lovely bits too early. Apparently this was a revival of the show that they had done ten years ago and though it was relevant then (and it still has some relevance now) it felt a little stale to me. The whole question of the play seemed to be can you avoid your obsessions and then what happens when you can’t. That’s it. And yes I’ll admit it’s a good message to think about, but it felt like there could have been more. I realize too that it is an old morality tale and those old stories did only have one message to convey most of the time. But when you take an old story and reinvent it to be told in front of an audience of 21^st century theatre goers, it can be a bit dull.

http://toobea.blogspot.com/2011/03/kneehighs-red-shoes.html

There were parts of the show that I did love and found utterly spectacular though. The actress who played the girl with the infamous red shoes danced pretty much throughout the show, and she was on stage for most of the show! Wearing thick clog-like shoes the whole company (of five) danced their hearts out, which is defiantly something incredible.  The grotesque sounds that were heard when the butcher went to cut off her feet (hopefully that wasn’t a spoiler) was cringing. The play was also sprinkled with dark humor and asides to the audience, though only one person spoke for the majority of the time and it was never The Girl.

http://toobea.blogspot.com/2011/03/kneehighs-red-shoes.html

I will always like Kneehigh for their inventiveness, their courageousness, and their ability to add some incredible scores to the plays they perform. I love their ability to take old stories and give them new life and shine a light on something that is relevant to modern society. But for me, their performance of The Red Shoes just left me with a “meh” reaction, not hating it, not loving it, but knowing they can do better.

Tomorrow: 6 April: Rocket to the Moon at the National Theatre (Lyttleton)