What I Heard About The World

This collaboration between Third Angel and Mala Voadora (Flying Suitcase) companies, sees three men on a simple set, explaining and re-enacting various odd stories from around the world. The stories are united not just in their peculiarities but also in that they all pertain to replacements or stand-ins for an original. There is the cut-out life-size men sent to families of serving soldiers to keep them company, the people in Siberia who use children’s toys as protesters, and in France, the premium-rate phone line on which you can leave your confessions as a voicemail.

These tales of humanity at its most idiosyncratic come to us through a variety of media: projections, sound recordings, TV, a fish tank, and a large water pistol amongst others. The actors use their real names and speak directly to the audience, lending a sincerity and a benevolence to this experiment. But while I appreciate the Brechtian self-reference and sense of place, there is a self-consciousness about this which goes a little too far out of the realm of done-for-man-on-street theatre and into the realm of good-for-theatre-students-to-see theatre.

There is something underdeveloped about it all. I had hoped to learn something real, fascinating and amusing but I came away with a head full of semi-interesting, dead-end anecdotes for the pub. However, given the constant side-splitting laughter from a few audience members, I may be alone in that.

Alex Chappel