Dream of Autumn

For those who are following the theatre adventures, Dream of Autumn is the latest production by Rough Magic. This one went through their SEEDS program. It's a translation of a Norwegian play by Jon Fosse who is evidently the most produced playwright in his country after Ibsen. The advert is a church yard/cemetery, slightly neglected, no names on the stones, taken in a well-lit haze if that makes any sense.

The title suits the piece. It was a semiologist's fantasy! The stage was wide and black with glass at the back wall and a path of brilliant, jagged, turquoise glass stones the size and shape of stones often found in garden landscaping. They crunched when they were walked on and they caught the light as if they were ice or snow. There was one black bench on stage right. At the beginning and at the end water came down the glass at the back.

The piece used time in an interesting way. It ran for ninety minutes without an interval. The piece was always on the cusp of death, often wrestling with love that was, but isn't as it was anymore. And moments kept slipping into the past without realising it until they were already passed. Again, the title suited the piece.

It left lots of space to be filled, lots of awkwardness and frustration that wasn't always spoken. The body language, the silences, the not looking or touching...it all accumulated and gained meaning. The space made many people uncomfortable and the show dragged at points, but, for me, that awkwardness was part of my desire for change, for effective speech, for contact that both people desperately want by will not, seemingly cannot name, accept, or have.