Raincoats in the Arctic
Blue Raincoat Theatre Company, hailing from Sligo and known for their large repertoire of, mainly Irish, pieces of theatre, have once more engaged creatively with an Irish story: a famous explorer, Shackleton, and his venture to the arctic. Sadly my knowledge of said adventure is limited and remains so even after watching this production.
Nonetheless, this performance, on tour from Sligo and staged currently in Dublin’s Project Arts Centre is a wonderful example of how far just a little bit of creativity (and a lot of white sheets!) can go when staging 48 km of icy continent. With four actors on stage, heavily outnumbered by props, the result was at times breathtakingly beautiful. Clever audio and lighting design combined with the rhythmic movements of the actors and the enthralled silence of the audience created the eerie, distant and quietly ethereal quality of this far-away land, the Arctic Circle.
Sadly, good sound design and clever manipulation of props is not enough when re-telling such an unusual tale of bravery. I found myself leaving no more educated on Ernest Shackleton than when I had arrived, breathless and flustered. Perhaps a few more projections of text combined with dialogue would have gone a long way in educating an audience which, one must assume, are not experts on the subject…
