Review: AN ACCIDENT / A LIFE, Marc Brew/Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui - Sadler’s Wells East
Photo credit: Filip van Roe
Although this work was created by two dancers, it is - in fact - an autobiographical play, with dialogue and multiple versions of the narrative it relates, although with a dancer’s sensibility to movement in space.
We begin with a body prone in front of a car and the sound of emergency services attending a road accident. When the figure moves, as much as he is able to do, we realise he is dressed as a crash test dummy. He crawls to the car and re-enacts the accident that left him paralysed, powerfully evoking that moment and the sense that everything changed for him in an instant. He then removes the mask and Marc Brew begins to tell us what happened next.
an Accident/a Life has been co-created by Brew with choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui. The story they tell is a harrowing one but is also a tale of small incremental triumphs, progress on the route towards a changed but worthwhile life. Brew is assisted throughout by two masked helpers (KazutomiKozuki and Pol Van den Broek) who also help to provide video close-ups of key moments of dialogue, or provide a different perspective on a scene we are watching from the auditorium. Our view, incidentally, is greatly assisted by the excellent sightlines at Sadler’s Wells East, although there is restricted legroom in many seats.
The car, his nemesis if you like, is a looming presence as Brew tells his story. At first centre stage, it is later hoisted towards the flies, hanging on end above him like the sword of Damocles. Later, the car’s bonnet becomes an alphabet board as he learns to communicate again. Two moving video screens provide context as well as close-ups, setting the scene for the accident in South Africa and then the journey home to Australia. There is clever use of pre-filmed sequences during costume and location changes, and always the two masked stage hands are there, playing the roles of many of the people whom Brew encountered during the many months after the accident. Real people like his mother appear on screen too.
Finally, he is at home in Australia and with his mother’s help, he can take a bath: a scene cleverly portrayed as are so many others by the use of a constantly changing sofa. At last, Brew becomes a judge dispensing justice, flying above us by wire, and then perhaps an angel. It’s a very effective change of perspective; after looking down at him for so long, he now looks down on us.
Marc Brew has an important story to tell, and, with Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, he has created an engrossing and cleverly staged narrative, imbued with a sense of bodies moving in space.
**** Four stars
Reviewed by Chris Abbott
an Accident / a Life plays at Sadler’s Wells East until 27 September, with further info here.
