Review: THIS IS THE LAND, VAULT Festival

Some productions are about very little while being advertised as being about everything. This Is The Land would benefit from an explicatory essay being handed out once the performance ends. It's like one of those creepy dreams that border on the nightmarish where nothing makes sense and then your teeth fall out or you have to sit an exam naked. It aims at the oneiric but lands on the nonsensical.

It's apparently meant to represent the cyclical recurrence of the seasons and speak about "ecological crisis, social inequality, and political repression of dissenting voices". It's a lot to expect from curious dances with a primal echo or looped speeches or disconnected stories about "ice cream with nibbly-nobbly bits on".

The one created by Leeza Jessie, Xavier De Santos, Samuel De La Torre, Alice Barton, Sofia Velez, and composer John Baggott is an astonishingly strange show, which wouldn't be a problem if it wasn't so... well, meaninglessly weird.

It's a struggle to even describe what's put on stage. Episodic scenes mould together with frantic movement-led parts while one of them follows the others with a microphone in the hopes (we think) they'd talk to him. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. A bit Beckettian, a bit abstract, a bit like when Maureen moos in Rent. It's obscure and, frankly, bonkers. And not in a great way.

Harmonising and guttural noises discombobulate the audience but never provide the satisfaction of clarity. It's certainly something for those who are into eccentric performance art. Who knows, it might be a hoot for the Extinction Rebellion crowd. As one of the characters says, "What a f*cking journey".

This Is The Land runs at the Network Theatre as part of VAULT Festival until 19 February.

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