The sign above Stratford Station says that there’s 1,729 days to the Olympics. There are fireworks going off over Canary Wharf. And I am in East London to see a piece of theatre… in a train station.
Strapped into a mezzanine seating bank by my individual headphone set, I find myself already affected by Back to Back’s site-specific revelation, small metal objects.
The combination of expectation and the background music pumped directly into my ears makes strange this everyday setting.
All of a sudden, the normal seems staged and we begin to create our own stories for Stratford’s bystanders and passers by. Aren’t those two women gesturing too broadly? Is the man with the newspaper in on the act? Through the lit windows of waiting trains, even the Silverlink passengers become unwitting participants in this human drama. And as the station floods and empties of people, the audience itself becomes a part of the performance – as commuters double take at the silent bank of observers above them.
Coughs and murmurs sneak into the music, and a conversation emerges between best friends Gary (Sonia Teuben) and Steve (Simon Laherty). All the while, we in the audience are straining our necks and squinting our eyes trying to locate the actors amongst the commuters. This clever camouflage brings an added furtiveness to the piece’s slow and stylised beginning.
But what we begin to think may be a sweet but overly worthy mediation on friendship, value and dependency peels back an extra layer when homebody Gary appears to be into darker things.
Contemplation becomes threatening with the entrance of two high-powered executives (Jim Russell and Genevieve Picot), who bring overtones of manipulation and the firmly held assumption that everything has its price.
Using the complex simplicity of an everyday conversation in an everyday place, small metal objects gives us much to think about. Steve’s lack of bullshit, Gary’s loyalty, and the borderline intimacy / dependency of their relationship contrasts with the articulate yet superficial self interest of the executives. As Back to Back is a company of actors considered to have intellectual disabilities, uncomfortable questions are also raised about the right to choice, and the manipulation and disrespect of disabled by non-disabled people.
Director Bruce Gladwin has done a lovely job sourcing and adapting the play to its new location. With its long open space of glass and metal, Stratford is the perfect setting for this work, which sold out in Melbourne and Sydney and which is now touring the world. With its constant backing track, Stratford becomes beautiful; the ebb and flow of commuters from all directions, the warm tableaux of quiet train windows, the curious interactions of passers by.
There are inherent risks in the lack of set, lighting or on-the-ground stage management. Indeed, interactions with the public are not always perfect. Two bobbies hesitate at the base of the stairs as Steve is quietly menaced (before noticing the actors’ headsets and the audience above), and a pair of girls almost stand on the toes of Gary and Steve to get a better photo of the audience.
In the end it is quiet again, sweet and real. A highlight for me is the applause moment, cleverly timed with the arrival of the 7.55 from Richmond. As they applaud the actors, the audience becomes the spectacle. And the performers generously give the passing crowd their dues.
small metal objects is part of The Barbican’s OzMosis 07 season, a festival of contemporary Australian performance. Until November 10. Box Office 0845 120 7515 or book online.
