Trapped [FringeTIX]
No Strings Attached Theatre of Disability @ Migration Museum Chapel
11:00am, Thu 17 Feb 2011
So after an enthusiastic chat about my shoes (and, be assured – I’m very enthusiastic about my KSOs) to Miep and PJ in the front-of-house, the small audience entered the Migration Museum Chapel… and it’s a lovely little space, but also quite small. There’s only seating for about twenty people in there, focussed on the bunk bed in the corner. A man sits under a light; he slowly counts in Spanish as the light flickers overhead, then throws himself forward, enacting brutal torture by himself, dunking his head into water. It’s a pretty shocking start, made all the more effective by wonderful lighting.
Alirio finds himself in a cell with Kym; there’s a sense of resignation (but still disbelief) at their incarceration: because of Alirio’s accent, because Kym can’t hear well in his left ear. A friendship develops in their cell, amidst the coldness of the authority that rules them; when Kym is eventually released, Alirio’s frustration and grief – and the pointlessness of his captivity – is tangible.
It was only about halfway through this performance (which runs a svelte twenty-five minutes) that I realised that I had seen it before, and Artistic Director PJ Rose confirmed it for me: Trapped was the major segment of 2connect, back in 2006. And then I noticed that snippets from that post have wound up in the flyers and programmes for Trapped, which makes me very happy.
And, even better, everything I wrote then still holds true: though some of the claustrophobia is diminished by the Chapel’s space, Mackenzie and Zavarce are still wonderful in their roles. And it still remains a decent piece of drama with a lot of heart… and a few lingering questions.