Invisible City
Chapter Arts Centre
21st January 2015
Invisible City explores
the life changing move from a small town to the big city. A wonderfully
original one-woman-show full of humour and inventiveness.
Lowri
Jenkins, as writer and performer, gave her very all to embodying Marie – a young
lady who has moved away from home to a confusing and surreal cityscape. In the
imagined megacity Marie must deal with loneliness, job interviews and the
seemingly-conscious self-service tills whilst constantly reassuring her mother that
she is ok.
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| Lowri Jenkins as Marie |
These
frequent phone calls with her mother are played with an honesty everyone can
relate to. Although we only hear Marie’s side of the conversation it’s clear to
see the love between the two – despite Marie’s constant efforts to say goodbye
and hang up.
The
relationships with offstage people are often touching and are navigated in
innovative and playful ways. In her pursuit of love, Marie even develops a surreal
relationship with an exotic-accented lemon. Jenkins delivers just the right
about of humour to draw proper belly laughs from the audience.
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| Marie and her unusual lover |
A
true collaboration between artists Invisible
City brought together a great group of people to contribute to the production.
Jennifer Fletcher, director and choreographer, clearly worked very closely with
Jenkins to create the often subtle but very effective movement that gave the
production its stylised feel. Mat Martin’s original score was perfectly suited
to the piece, it would have been nice to hear more of it, rather than the
overused voiceovers.
The
concept was intriguing but it felt like there was still more work to be done
before presenting this production to a paying audience. The main themes/scenes
had been fully explored to get every bit of potential from them – to the point
that they could have been edited down a bit. The overly simple set and poorly conceived
lighting also distracted from the beautifully delivered performance.
Playful,
experimental and uplifting – Invisible City
is an enjoyable production that falls just short of being great.
