Black Crow Lullabies (Part 2 & 3)
floogle @ Tea House Gallery (Synagogue Place)
9:35pm, Sat 25 Feb 2006
Score: 8
The second piece in the Black Crow Lullabies trilogy, “Eve’s Memory”, is a belter. It’s a touch more elusive than “Nod”, but the three-act script is wonderfully weighted; each passing moment seems to bring additional understanding to the convoluted story, which is almost told in reverse. Again, Patrick Graham puts in a great performance, whereas Sarah Hunt’s Eve wavers between the sublime and the adequate. And it’s really hard to say much more than that; this one has a familiar, yet unexpected sting in the tail which works very well.
(Oooh – I was just reading the script – I never realised that “Eve’s Memory” was supposed to take place in the same house as “one long night in the land of Nod”. Fantastic :)
The final piece in the trilogy, appropriately titled “The Lullaby”, is a more abstract piece again. Stilted language and fractured phrases make this piece much heavier going than the preceding pieces, though it’s in no way less worthy. However, this piece (more than the others) was both benefited and hampered by the intimate space floogle has set-up in the Tea House Gallery; the closeness to Patrick Graham’s performance is fantastic, but it impedes the overall viewing of the piece, especially for those at the back of the audience.
Super-kudos must be given to Patrick Graham – three very different performances within three hours… what a legend! Kudos, too, to the floogle collective in general: hopefully we’ll be seeing much more of them.
(See also Black Crow Lullabies (Part 1).)