‘Willkommen!’ It’s your wedding day, your partner? Life.
Gecko’s latest production The Wedding closed its week-long run of shows in Southampton this Friday and it was no lacklustre finish as the performers shook the stage with a syncopated, autochthonic pulse of claps and thuds. The rhythm reverberated through the audience as toes tapped in unity.
After seeing Gecko’s previous play Institute in 2016 it was challenging not to compare the two especially as Institute was such an arresting and powerful piece of performance that combined visual art with faultless choreography; a ‘unique vision’ as The Independent rather acutely defined it. How could a company improve on such brilliant work? I was unsure.
As with their previous show, Gecko worked closely with Suffolk Mind a regional mental health charity to form workshops, their aim was to bring together young adults from refugee and migrant communities to ‘celebrate our shared backgrounds’ as the Artistic Director Amit Lahav writes in the brochure. The Wedding was undoubtedly international with only one actor speaking English throughout the whole play, a factor that was disillusioning in moments, but it is at great credit to Gecko’s performers that the narrative remained true despite the lack of verbal cues.
The story was centred on the idea that we are born into a system, a contract that, like a marriage has requirements and expectations. The performers used props of a phone, a tie and a beer bottle attached to the end of large polls which were thrust upon the American character, a feature that paid homage to Institute’s use of poles to manipulate body movement. Miniature offices transported by the performer’s feet, shifted around the stage like squares on a Rubik’s cube. Work was one compulsory deed in this marriage to society.
Another obligation was leaving behind childhood desires, the beginning of the play was very methodical - wedded persons were welcomed, ‘Willkommen!’ after being expelled from a green tube slide into a bed of teddy bears. Once their own bear, complete with yellow bow had been discarded they were put in a white dress and danced in unison with their fellow brides and grooms. The system cannot easily be divorced from as characters attempt escape in vain; Sophie unsuccessfully attempts to climb back up the green chute she came from, longing for a before-time.
The most successful part of the play, and an element that could be developed in its own right, was the refugee group, Khalid a street performer, his wife Lola and their two male card playing compadres who reside together in a large suitcase. Khalid emerged to perform for ‘one euro’ before singing, dancing and miming to an old radio, ‘one euro each’ he clarifies, mimicking the sound of money dropping in his empty coffee cup. His performance was simple yet brilliantly hilarious. Their function in the piece, it seemed, was to convey the life of those outcast or forgotten from ‘the system.’ However in a scene where Khalid is given a machine gun, bullet vest and black and white scarf before being piled into his suitcase and beaten by an American, the refugee’s place in the dramatical world seemed unclear.
Gecko are famed for their intricate, fluid movement and innovative use of physical theatre to convey story. I recall Institute’s portrayal of a woman who existed only in a man’s mind that used no words, only a hat, a red heeled boot concealed under a man’s trouser leg and a marble hand sculpture. These moments were lacking in The Wedding as the company favoured large gestures and rough movements. This was appropriate for the tone of the play; especially towards the end when the yellow bows from bears become badges of defiance, refugee and homeless characters are welcomed into society freely and a faceless male figure seen drinking champagne on stilts under a golden arch is brought to the ground. A revolution is messy and raw and so the movements matched this, understandable, but I couldn’t help feeling that they were unfinished and a little blasé. The beauty of Institute lay in the purpose behind every twitch and turn; in the case of this production this cannot be said.
Gecko are a devising company and have worked with regional theatres to collaborate, a fact that was felt as The Wedding did not sit well as a piece of theatre in its own right. It was more like a collection of thoughts, inspirations and ideas that were stitched together, rather tenuously, to create a show. The themes of birth, marriage, the hierarchy of society, terrorism, refugees and nationality were just too much for Gecko to take on in the space of 80 minutes. This was a shame as a more focused approach like with Institute, of masculinity, labour and anxiety worked so well to give the performer’s time and space to explore. The epiphanies of understanding and magical moments of wonder that were so potent in Institute were lost from The Wedding.
The show left me at odds, but perhaps that is what Gecko were trying to achieve, to encourage contemplative afterthought on our invisible contract with the world that lasted beyond the closing of the theatre’s doors. Though it had its anomalies, The Wedding was irrefutably fervent in energy and emotion as the beads of sweat on the performer’s brows confirmed. This production I am convinced will lead to wonderful work in the future, and I for one will be there.
To find out more about this production and the company, follow this link - http://geckotheatre.com/the-wedding/