Life’s a puzzle and full of ups and downs. Especially when people come across others that they just can’t understand.
Antler Theatre’s Lands comes via the 2017 Edinburgh Fringe and springs surprises galore as the protagonists transform a deceptively simple absurdist narrative into something more provocative and capable of a multitude of meanings.
Sophie Steer and Leah Brotherhead are both apparently locked up in their own worlds; one bouncing incessantly on a mini trampoline and the other absorbed in a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle.
With a whimsy that, literally at times, jumps from a playful examination of two different personalities to outright screaming rage, Lands explores the impossibility of building sustainable relationships when obsession start to take the upper hand.
While Sophie eats a packet of cheese and onion crisps while springing up and down in one corner of a room, Leah takes great pleasure examining tiny pieces of her puzzle while nerdishly documenting the miniature scenes within; two people smiling in a red vehicle. It could be a bus, but no one smiles that much on a bus, so it must be private transport. And here’s a goat, or is it a cat? It’s all so innocent and the two are obviously coexisting harmoniously and without any tension.
But what do people do? They start to entrench and begin to criticise the other’s point of view, beginning when Leah tries to persuade Sophie that what she is doing is not normal. It must stop. Sophie must get off the trampoline. But Sophie can’t, or won’t and doesn’t understand why she must.
In just over an hour observations of addiction or of relationship breakdown or even a deeper allegory of man’s inability to understand his fellow man are explored.
The constant physicality and simplicity of the setting, along with the carefully limited amount of dialogue including use of repetition allow the performers to delve deep into their own psyche and ask the audience increasingly difficult questions. Why should we care about others; about natural and unnatural disasters and whether someone else is either going bald or had an interesting dream?
There are many moments of laugh aloud comedy, not least when things get overtly physical as Leah forces Sophie to drink a glass of water while still bouncing. The interaction between the two veers between the enjoyment that they get from performing an obviously well-loved dance routine to an all-out antagonistic wrestling match.
Jaz Woodcock-Stewart directs with neat precision, while the unseen ‘Rachel’ cues up music or lighting changes to alter the mood when called upon by the actors. Sophie even gets off the trampoline every now and harmony is restored, but only fleetingly.
Whether the piece is about relationship decline, mental illness or even, God forbid, as allegory for Brexit, the play forces the audience to laugh at the irrational amid the mundane.
Lands is a well-balanced, original and timely reminder that life’s ebb and flow is always a riddle.
★★★★☆ Bryan Mason 17th October 2018
