*** (3 stars)
“Mystified”
Well that really was something completely different.
How to describe the indescribable? Twelve singers, two percussionists and six puppeteers – who didn’t get a curtain call, which I think is inexcusable – presented four ancient Chinese myths, part of a collection itself called The Book of Mountains and Seas.
The legend of Pan Gu, tells of the creation of the world. The giant Pan Gu hatches out of a cosmic egg and separates its contents into yang and yin, creating the sky and the world. As he grows, these move further and further apart: when he dies, his body becomes everything in creation, both in the heavens and on the earth.
The Spirit Bird tells of a princess, Nu Wa, who drowns at sea. Her spirit enters the body of a bird and for all eternity tries to exact her revenge on the sea, dropping into it an endless succession of twigs and pebbles.
The Ten Suns are the children of mother Xi He and Di Jun, God of the Eastern Heaven. Each takes it in turn to ride around the earth on a Sun Bird, until one day they get tired of doing this and decide to ride round together, causing crops to wither, water to evaporate , and all living things on earth to die. The god of archery, Hou Yi, is summoned and kills nine of the suns: the tenth is left to bring light to the world.
Kua Fu Chasing the Sun tells of the giant Kua Fu who can’t understand where the sun disappears to each night, and decides to chase it to find out. He runs faster and faster, and in his thirst drinks dry the rivers and the seas. He dies of exhaustion: he drops his walking stick, which grows into forests of peach trees.
These legends are all full of meaning for us, in particular questioning our attitudes to the earth we inhabit and the way we relate to and treat the land, the sea, and all living things. Some of the visual effects were very beautiful, especially the glowing globes of the suns against the darkness surrounding them; the puppetry that created the giant Kua Fu’s running was very impressive. I particularly loved the shower of peach blossom petals which fell from on high like a shower of fireflies on to the stage.
I wish I could say the same of Hang Ruo’s music and libretto. The twelve singers of Ars Nova Copenhagen are obviously extremely talented musicians who delivered a score which had for the most part no well-defined rhythmic pulse and for its entirety no sense of tonality or key. How they each kept time, found their notes, and held them against the conflicting sounds coming from those around them, I have no idea. Listeners more accustomed than I to listen to contemporary music may have found it deeply meaningful and/ or moving: I found it very hard to enjoy or make any sense of what I was hearing. Wordless vocalising, mostly on single notes or in very short phrases, alternated with seemingly meaningless syllables, partly from the original Chinese text and a nonsense language invented for this piece. At one point I began to believe the singers were singing ‘mug-gle, mug-gle’ – but they can’t have been….
It didn’t help that a protruding box on the next shelf up obscured part of the titles and translations that were being projected on to the back of the stage: had I not looked at the on line programme before the show began, I would have been completely lost.
There were some rousing cheers in the applause at the end of the show, but I fancy I was not the only audience member left totally mystified by the whole experience.
EIF, Book of Mountains and Seas, Royal Lyceum Theatre, for more information go to: https://www.eif.co.uk/events/book-of-mountains-and-seas
ScotsGay Arts 