Review: Agor Drysau

Mar 21 2008 by David Adams, Western Mail

Aberystwyth Arts Centre

NOTE the full title of this stimulating week organised by Jeremy Turner and Arad Goch: Wales’ International Festival of Theatre for Young Audiences.

No, it’s not just about Theatre-in-Education (TIE) or Young People’s Theatre (YPT), the preferred labels for the practice that was once lauded as the jewel in the crown of Welsh theatre and, more recently, was given the Assembly imprimatur with a generous hike in subsidised financial support.

Theatre for Young Audiences is what our European colleagues have been offering for some while – and, of course, it’s in some ways a different animal from the Welsh model which is in general tied to the idea of the work being educational.

So the 17 shows in Agor Drysau – Opening Doors – were not all of a kind, the five international productions often in marked contrast to the work from the eight Welsh companies.

That’s not to say that the small-scale hit of the festival, Theatr Iolo’s Under the Carpet, inhabited a different artistic world than, say, Arcosm’s Echoa: Sarah Argent’s piece for under-fives was superb minimalist theatre that not only worked for its young audience but offered all sorts of resonances for adults, from Beckett to Austen.

But would we see a show like Echoa or the Belgian Theatre Maat’s The Angel’s Leap ever come out of Welsh YPT ? No, for all sorts of reasons.

And while overall this was a good year for Wales, it was seeing a range of overseas work for young audiences that (for this critic at least, who has seen most of the Welsh work) offered the main fascination in Agor Drysau.

While Echoa was undoubtedly the most stunning work, the other special guests revealed a range that proves that it is impossible to generalise about the genre.

Det Lille Turneteater, from Denmark, for example, was a quartet of guys retelling Hamlet (a play that, of course, is set in Denmark) in a style that was accessible without dumbing-down. Two actors and two double-bass players created getting on for a dozen of the main characters as Horatio told the tale from his perspective, with the original Shakespeare verse incorporated into more everyday narrative. It’s as far from the Reduced Shakespeare Company as you could get but it was a theatrical treat.

More recognisable as the sort of YPT we’re used to was Jumping On My Shadow from Ireland’s Team, a play that like much of our theatre explores issues like displacement, asylum-seeking, integration and tolerance. In some ways it was immature, obvious and not always well done, but it won me over with its lyrical script (from Peter Rumney) and its easy mix of fantasy and realism as it mixed the experiences of three generations of refugees in a Dublin bakery – and with an unexpectedly tough climax as the ghosts of the past and the victims of the present unite in opposition to man the barricades against oppression.

It was undoubtedly the most political of anything I saw at Agor Drysau and at the opposite end of the spectrum from the most visually stunning show, Theatre Maat’s The Angel’s Leap, the simple tale of three angels set on a fluffy cloud in a bright blue sky – where characters don’t talk but communicate through music (dad angel’s trombone and mum and daughter’s violins).

And Echoa? Simply one of the best shows for young audiences I have seen. It speaks, like The Angel’s Leap, not through words but through performance – dance, comedy, percussion – and it entrances its audience by relating directly to life as young person. No didacticism, no whimsy, just four people with immaculate skills, a warmth and energy all sustained for nearly an hour of exquisite theatricality.