Theatre Review - Mnemonic
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| Khalid Abdalla in Mnemonic [Johan Persson] |
I REMEMBER being utterly captivated the first time I saw Mnemonic, conceived and directed by Complicité’s co-founder Simon McBurney 25 years ago. Joining original cast members Richard Katz, Tim McMullan and Kostas Philippoglou, are nine new collaborators who reignite the show’s magic and bring it up to date.
Khalid Abdalla opens proceedings with a riff on the haphazard and fragmented nature of memory. He draws parallels between storytelling and how we reconstruct our memories. Remembering, he suggests, is inevitably a creative act.
We are encouraged to don an eye mask as Abdalla asks us to recall certain pivotal moments from the past such as Princess Diana’s death and 9/11.
When we emerge from the darkness, Abdalla is transformed into Omar, a fellow audience member whose girlfriend has disappeared. Interwoven with his story is that of Alice (Eileen Walsh) who criss-crosses Europe in an attempt to trace her father.
We return to the iceman, Otzi, who featured in the 1999 production. His 5,000-year-old body, discovered in the ice on the border of the Austrian and Italian Alps in 1991, is just as resonant today. Specialists meet to debate Otzi’s origins, age, ethnicity and likely cause of death.
During the course of two hours, several themes emerge including migration – how the environment dictates patterns of human movement – identity, and the stories we tell to better understand the past.
Part of the pleasure of this production is the connections it prompts us to make in our imaginations and how these change over time.
Under the leadership of McBurney, Mnemonic is a truly collaborative effort; the perfect meshing of performance, text and technology.
Michael Levine’s versatile set is beautifully utilised by the ensemble, while Paul Anderson’s lighting and Christopher Shutt’s sound are combined with Roland Horvath’s video to terrific effect.
Until August 10