Review: COLLABORATOR, Ockham’s Razor - The Place
Photo credit: Jamie Dennis
Ockham’s Razor have been at the forefront of circus arts for many years. Named for the company’s approach, which aims to cut through complexity and go straight to the heart of the matter, Ockham’s Razor have always combined circus and visual theatre, and often using equipment that they have originated themselves. For more than twenty years, the company has developed its work through following these principles.
Co-directors Alex Harvey and Charlotte Mooney met at circus school and, in addition to their work with the company, have been hugely influential by taking circus and allied skills to all types of performance through collaborations with others. And then, we are told, someone asked them if they had retired as performers. Their response to that question led to Collaborator, premiered at The Place exactly twenty years after the couple appeared at the venue as part of a showcase for emerging artists.
As always, Collaborator uses original equipment, with Harvey and Mooney mainly interacting with a double-sided, two-level trapeze. Their interactions with one another and this device tell a story of both a growing relationship and a developing body of work. Although it is possible to trace a narrative thread in this way, it seems more valid to simply enjoy the expertise, poise and skills of these two performers.
Around them, the stage is filled with various devices, rigged in most cases as pendulums of some kind. Sand falls beautifully, weights swing and time passes; the whole effect seeking to remind us that the clock is always ticking, although others might find different meanings. Costumes are original too, cable-knit shorts and tops in pastel tones rather than sequins and sparkles, and selected from an apparently random pile on the floor!
It takes a while to tune in to the show, although this is made much easier by Mooney’s spoken sections, telling us how the work came about and how long it has taken to produce it. As they state in the programme, the couple’s aim was to produce “a show about what it’s like to work with somebody who you love for over twenty years.”
It’s a short 50min long piece but work of this intensity could not be prolonged for more than this length. In Collaborator, Alex Harvey and Charlotte Mooney have created a fitting finale to performing, if that is what it is to be; but their audiences will be hoping that the experience will persuade them to appear on stage again after this tour.
**** Four stars
Reviewed by: Chris Abbott
Collaborator plays at The Place in London until 31 January, with further info here.
