Review: LOVE FROM CARMEN, Chickenshed Theatre

Bizet’s opera, Carmen, will celebrate its 150th anniversary next year, the kind of event that can trigger a slew of productions to be staged. But the tale of temptress and her outsiders, torrid love triangles and passions inflamed beyond reason is opening next month at the Royal Opera House - it’s never away for long. Roll in spin-offs like the Broadway and movie musical, Carmen Jones, and the inspiration for this production, Matthew Bourne’s hugely successful dance version, The Car Man, and you have a source ripe for the unique Chickenshed treatment. 

Set in the near future, this production draws on the staff and students of this institution (currently celebrating its 50th year) to tell the tale through rap, circus and movement, a cavalcade of talent rippling out from the stage into the house. This is a young show, packed with youthful energy and commitment, told in the discourse that young people use to communicate.

Your reviewer is not young. The lyrics rapped into mics to a mash-up of Bizet’s unforgettable tunes, came too quickly for my ears to discern - I was still trying to unravel one fast line as the next one was completed. That’s an occasional problem even in Hamilton, but the pace does ebb and flow more in that blockbuster. 

That makes for a tricky time sifting the plot, Carmen’s would-be lovers vying for her favours as she underlines her free spirit amongst her refugee colleagues in the circus troupe. Meanwhile, a paramilitary police force seek to move against them, with Carmen their de facto leader of the resistance. It doesn’t end well - operas don’t on the whole.

It’s a rare misfire for this company, as clarity of storytelling (for example, in the dazzling The Washing Line of 2022) has always been at the heart of its work, its boldness in addressing complex and challenging material continually rewarded. Though it’s an extra cost, surtitles would have been a big help. 

But that’s the carping over, the spectacle is beautiful. Director, Cara McInanny, moves her dancers and tumblers around the big stage to build an atmosphere of simmering violence, of love offered and refused, of hopes smashed and revived. As Carmen, Bethany Hamlin, all sassy confidence until she’s in too deep, negotiates a dangerous world, you can see that same challenge before these kids in real life, one that will bring as much joy and as many tears. You want to tell them that it’ll be all right - eventually - but you also hope that they won’t listen as you can really only find out for yourself.

That is one of the learnings that will come out of this show for those who make it and those who see it. And, even if my ageing brain couldn’t process everything thrown at it, others will. The bigger point is that theatre can empower lives as circus empowered Carmen and her band of misfits ostracised by a hostile environment. It’s a lesson one can neither see nor learn too often.

Love From Carmen is at Chickenshed Theatre until 23 March

Photo Credits: Chickenshed

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