BWW Reviews: Promising CELLARDOOR Less Than the Sum of Its Parts

CELLARDOOR has all the makings of a superb piece of physical theatre: a great concept; a seductive soundscape; and the conceptualisation of the piece as a meeting point for dance, the spoken word, music and visual design elements. Opening up and deconstructing traditional perceptions of beauty, CELLARDOOR begins by acknowledging that beauty in itself is subjective, a notion that makes for a compelling marriage of motion and linguistic play in a solo performed by choreographer Alan Parker early on in the piece. This sequence sets up a rangy thesis of ideas, some of which are explored in greater depth in the sequences that follow, but unfortunately the total effect of CELLARDOOR is rather less than the sum of its parts.

CELLARDOOR takes its name from the compound noun, cellar door, which has rather romantically been named by various authors and linguists as one of the most beautiful aural sequences in the English language when separated from its meaning and spelling. That separation, of finding beauty in ugliness, is the conceptual foundation of CELLARDOOR. The performance starts off in a playful mode, with Jen Schneeberger deconstructing the ubiquitous recording that precedes almost all National Arts Festival productions. (Actually there was a bit of business that preceded this, where audience members were pulled up onto stage to take grotesque selfies with two of the cast members, but that was much of a muchness.) Other key moments in the show involve Gavin Krastin's two encounters (one vocal and one physical) with Christina Aguilera's "Beautiful", Lorin Sookool's solo in a skirt made from shiny material bananas attached to a leopard print bodysuit, a duet between Parker and Nicola Elliot that explores the formal aspects of space and a deconstruction of the English language in which Schneeberger appears as a Queen Elizabeth type figure who fights being swallowed by her own re galia.

Some of these explorations pay off beautifully in performance. Parker's whimsical solo sets up the serious-comic tone of CELLARDOOR perfectly. Sookool's solo is mesmerising, capturing in dance the ever fluctuating space that exists in between the dichotomy of beauty and ugliness. Schneeberger, with her haunting vocal performance, leaves an indelible imprint on the ear, eliciting a sense of sheer terror as she struggles to stay afloat in a costume that threatens to consume her. On the other hand, Krastin's two pieces make their point in half the time they take to perform. A compelling performer, Krastin communicates in a striking fashion the vulnerability of the performer and sacrificial act of performance. Both peak too early and never develop further; neither do the length or repetition of motifs, attitudes, vocalisation and imagery in the pieces begin to communicate something in itself. The duet between Parker and Elliot worked least well out of the various sequences and was curiously flat, engaging neither the mind nor the eye.

Overall, CELLARDOOR makes some interesting proposals, but it plays like a series of acts than a fully realised piece. A production that celebrates 20 years of the First Physical Theatre Company, I had hoped that CELLARDOOR would be able to stand alongside the truly great work that has emerged from the company's repertoire over the years. First commissioned for last year's Dance Umbrella, CELLARDOOR has had time to be seen and to grow into that kind of tribute, but it feels unfinished. While there is a clear passion for its thesis, CELLARDOOR feels as though it was rushed in the making and consequently emerges only as a shadow of the phenomenal First Physical Theatre legacy.

CELLARDOOR played a season at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown, closing on 2 July after a season of six performances.

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