REVIEW: CAGES at Riverside Studios 13 Sept 2022 – 1 January 2023
‘Wildly ambitious with some breath-taking sequences.’
In Anhedonia, a place located in a Dystopian future world, emotions are forbidden. Hearts must be locked in cages, and the inhabitants of this grey, lifeless place, walk stiffly, bodies rigid with repression. When protagonist, Woolf (Jack Butterworth) falls for Madeleine, he must face the harshest of consequences.
Cages is a love story expressed through the language of technology. Offering a live experience rather than traditional theatre, the production first performed in Los Angeles, is now in London. For anyone too old for magic shows or Disney movies and young enough to suspend belief, the visual spectacle of Cages could be a Christmas show contender. It certainly offers something different and the teenagers in the audience loved it.
When you settle into the auditorium, the gurgling sound of thunder is so convincing, you want to put your umbrella up. There’s a storm brewing and it’s a sonic one as experiential sounds, music and song wrap around you, rather loudly, for the next ninety minutes. And, it’s not just your ears that will ring, your eyes will widen as bodies float or hang mid-air, apparitions appear and objects disappear into puffs of smoke or a trail of pixels.
Visually, the inspirations for Cages are drawn from steam punk, German expressionism and gothic horror. Think The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari meets The Crow and Ed Wood. Special mention to Mildred von Hildegard, who has translated Anhedonia’s bleak values into dramatic costumes of caged bodices and bustles or dark suits for the men who stomp around the stage with blank expressions.
Using a combination of video, animation, dance and theatre, there are some breath-taking sequences and a bold attitude to the cross-fertilisation of genres. But the story’s key strand, an elimination of emotion, also plays out into the audience experience who may struggle to feel anything beyond detached curiosity at the theatrical sorcery. Hats off to the makers for creating a wildly ambitious show but Cages might be a case of putting the technological horse before the narrative cart.
Presented by Scenario Two /
Woolf and the Wondershow
CAGES
TUESDAY 15 NOVEMBER 2022 - SUNDAY 1 JANUARY 2023
Riverside Theatre
Information/ Bookings https://riversidestudios.co.uk/see-and-do/cages-41317/
Reviewed by Nilgin Yusuf
An experienced author, lecturer and journalist (ex-Sunday Times, Daily Telegraph and ELLE) Nilgin is developing her first full-length stage play, supported by Mrs.C’s Collective and the Arts Council
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