With a title like Come Away with Me to the End of the World, one would expect a heartfelt, romantic and maybe whimsical piece. However, one would be sorely disappointed. When entering the Samuel Beckett Theatre for a production as a part of the Dublin Theatre Festival, there is a horizon of expectations in terms of theme, standard of design and polish, which is not met in this productions. I do not think that it is acceptable to be able to hear the technical crew operating the show over the actor’s distinct lack of projection when I have paid over €25 for a ticket. However, this rather pressing issue aside, the show lacks something very vital.
This is the creation of a universe in which we are aware of who the characters are, where they are, in what way they are related to each other, and why they are there.
When entering the theatre, you are faced with a set that consists of white flooring, a small square flat with a painted forest scene, and a selection of other small set pieces, such as fold out stools and small painted mountains at either side. If you had read the blurb in the programme before entering the space, you would realise that this was an attempt at creating a space that looked like a rehearsal room.
Though I admire the risk taken here, it did not read clearly and fell short of its goals, instead looking rushed together and entirely discordant. Unfortunately this was not aided by the costume design, which also left a confused and unclear mark in the mind of this audience member. Costumes ranged from an actor wearing a modern every-day shirt and jeans, to one actor’s vaguely German folk-band looking skirt. One stand out in the lack of accordant costume design was one of the dancers, who rather confusingly was dressed in a waistcoat and flat cap, resembling an extra from a production of The Plough and the Stars, while performing the Tarantella, an Italian dance.
Only adding to the intense confusion and lack of engagement I felt was the constant soundtrack of birds and light piano music, reminding me of a Celtic Forest CD you could purchase in your local O’Carrolls, as well as the insistence on the part of the actors to consistently gaze doe-eyed into the audience, though making no other attempts to break the fourth wall apart from this.
Overall I felt this piece lacked intention. The main problem was the distinct inability to create a concrete universe in which we know who the characters are, where they are and what they are trying to communicate, which is imperative in creating an engaging theatre piece. The actors moved without reason and spoke without context or emotion, half addressing the audience directly, half addressing their fellows on stage, but never giving us any intense emotion or arc on which to found any interest in their stories. Unfortunately, this ensured no engagement even when the scenes on stage became more interesting, such as the well performed choreography by the dancers, or the lovely three-part harmonies when the performers began to sing.
However, I could not bring to mind why either of these moments were necessary, and they certainly did not fit into the piece, so these moments of performativity were lost in the onslaught of an hour and forty minutes of totally disinteresting theatre.
I felt entirely confused and excluded from the piece as an audience member, and this confusion could be summed up in the final moments of the production, when one of the actors appeared in the midst of a mountainous campfire scene in a long white sheet dress, a long black wig and beard and serenaded the other actors, dressed in snow gear and still sat in front of the small painted forest flat, with a rendition of a song entitled, like the production itself, “Come Away with Me to the End of the World”, in a style somewhere between crooner and progressive rock.
This image was jarring to say the least and unfortunately ended a show that was entirely unmelodious from start to finish. My first Dublin Theatre Festival show of 2017 was unfortunately very disappointing. Let’s hope that the rest of the festival has more to offer.
