Revu Stop Playing Jacob’s Ladder With My Spine
“Stop Playing Jacob’s Ladder With My Spine” Poster
As beautiful as it is ugly as it is intimate as it is high art.
Stop Playing Jacob’s Ladder With My Spine is a production that is hard to put into a box. It combines dance and physical theatre with a dedicated soundscape with captions and projections and with poetry. It is something that could quite easily fail under the weight of its combined elements. But put simply, put plainly, it does not. Instead, it excels.
The production’s story is abstract, intentionally opaque. It seems to be more focussed on an idea or atmosphere than a conventional story, but there are narrative elements. Characters feel stuck in ruts, feel like they are not moving forward in life and are instead filling time doing nothing. One works as a barista. One reviews food. One has a crush on another. These elements do develop but they play second fiddle to everything else.
The dance sequences in this production are simply breathtaking. The opening and the section involving a plastic sheet stand out as highlights with praise especially going to Amanda Pang, who is utterly mesmerizing.
The captions themselves that run throughout the performance, sometimes describing the lines, sometimes the sounds, sometimes events not even occurring are also exceptionally well done. Not only are they poetic in language but they have an element of concrete poetry to them where font, colour, size and how they look visually has been clearly thought about and arranged carefully in order to move in harmony with the dancers.
The music and soundscape are also extremely effective. Full credits go to the composers: Estuardo del Angel, Eve Boulos, Oli Spooner, Tom Warrilow, who have created an unconventional but beautiful score that has strength in its restraint.
Stop Playing Jacob’s Ladder With My Spine is not a production for everyone. It could be considered snobbish or different for the sake of different, but it is clear that this is not a conventional production. It is not one to be watched but one to be felt. It is literary in its nature. It is conceptual. It is magnificent.
Tickets can be found here: https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/stop-playing-jacob-s-ladder-with-my-spine
4.5/5 Stars
By Ethan H.M.M
