Theatre without words…not mime, not ballet, but theatre. It’s a concept central to the work of Flemish theatre collective FC Bergman where stage spectacle is their speciality.
There is a lot of background detail one can read about “Works and Days”, their Festival offering currently at the Lyceum Theatre. It’s about how this piece blends imagery, movement and music to explore our ever deteriorating relationship with the land we inhabit, and how our lives are becoming more and more distanced and fragmented from our earth.
There is a lot of reference as to how the stage tableaux resemble paintings and the accompanying music is inspired by Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, but do we really get this from the action that unfolds before us on stage? Answer – only sometimes. Some of the scenes are spectacular: a lonely woman staring into the sunset, a woman drenched by rain battling fruitlessly to till the soil on her own, which contrast sharply with the early scenes of happy communal group effort at one with each other and at ease with nature.
A looming steaming locomotive heralds the dawn of the Industrial age and our increasing alienation from our work and our team effort. Vivaldi is expressed by one instrument played at a time, sometimes mellow, sometimes atonal. Some rhythms are just stomped.
In brief, the concept seems larger than the actualisation. A lot of energy is expressed on stage, but as mankind grows ever apart from nature it all ends with a little robotic dog turning his unseeing eye on the audience and looking to our future. Wordlessly.
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The Lyceum theatre until August 10th.