The Place, London
September 20, 2018
Charlotte Kasner
A collaboration between choreographer Ben Wright and musician/writer Stuart Warwick, Point of Echoes is a tale of love, death and monsters. Although the plot pulls no surprises, the work is atmospheric and engaging. Indeed, the execution makes it feel like that ghost story writer M R James at his very best.
It’s 1978 and the winter solstice: the day in mid-December with the shortest period of daylight and the longest night of the year. Eric Valentine and Bernard Humphries both have reasons for wanting to work in relative isolation at Echo Point lighthouse: Eric’s is enforced, Bernard’s is self-inflicted.
Third man Harry has been evacuated with suspected appendicitis leaving a reluctant Bernard to deal with his new assistant. Eric arrives with copious amounts of luggage and a letter from his mother explaining that although he suffers from personality “quirks”, he is honest and a hard worker. He loves drawing and is proud of his seven distinctions at O-Level. Bernard just wants to be left alone.
Gradually, during the long night, the men’s stories unravel as the storm rages outside and inside. Both become briefly deluded until the morning light brings a modicum of rationality. Both have to deal with a third person in their minds and in their midst. Bernard introduces Eric to the rituals of maintaining the light, aided by the song that all the Trinity House men know, and to his illicit moonshine.
Wright uses dance extremely effectively to communicate mental anguish and general weirdness. Interposed seamlessly between dialogue, it provides a chance for the audience to delve into the emotions of the events that have been spoken of as limbs and torsos writhe or jerk out accompanied by the sound of metal wrenching against metal.
Will Holt’s set is excellent. A raised circle of rostra surrounded by a spiral of descending steps with trap doors for storing and retrieving props. At The Place, the audience are arranged on the flat along two sides, which unfortunately meant poor sightlines and dialogue sometimes drowned by other sound if performers were turned to the audience on the opposite side. All is surrounded by screens showing a flat image of sea and sky. Alan Stone’s soundscape completes the effect of marine isolation, incorporating Stuart Warwick’s original music with the creaks and groans of the red and white lighthouse in a storm.
If there is one quibble, it is that props are too numerous and fussy. The building of the light is extremely effective, but shuffling of tables and chairs and the reaching in an out to retrieve and clear props is a little irritating. Did Bernard really need to don a little pink pinny to cook breakfast? It didn’t even have the benefit of being splashed with red paint. An economy of design would find a way to strip these down to something more stylised and have the benefit of making the remaining props more stark.
Holt manages to convey a sense of period too; something about the jeans a cable knit sweaters that took me right back to days filming under sail in the same era. Of course, Trinity House last manned lighthouses in 1998 when the North Foreland keeper shut the door for the last time. Never mind a perfect storm, lighthouses had provided the perfect opportunity for real tragedies as well as fictional ones. Wright does well to invoke that rich heritage.
Point of Echoes continues on tour. Visit www.chinaplatetheatre.com for dates, details, and a trailer.