Thoughts on Dancing Brick's 'Captain Ko and the Planet of Rice'

Thoughts on Dancing Brick's Captain Ko and the Planet of Rice

So I've just got back from Edinburgh's Underbelly, having seen Dancing Brick's latest piece, Captain Ko and the Planet of Rice. If you're looking for a review, this isn't it – this isn't a review, not as such. In fact, I feel pretty under-qualified to review it at all, because – and at the moment I'll hold my hand up to this – I don't think I really understood all that the company was trying to achieve. Although, at some point, I do need to write a review. At some point.

This isn't the review, this is more of a chance for me to try and hash out some thoughts about Captain Ko... and see where I end up. Feel free to join me, or to move on; up to you. There'll probably be spoilers.

So, Captain Ko. Oh, and the Planet of Rice. The title prepares us for a sci-fi voyage, and possibly a slightly quirky one. For the first twenty minutes or so, that's exactly what we get. But the play clearly divides into three distinct sections, and connecting them is the problem I'm currently having. Let's take them one at a time. [It turns out that these aren't sections at all – we're being shown a triptych of different plays, not one play at all, which actually makes quite a lot of difference – Ed.]

The first section is basically a loving homage to the age of classic TV sci-fi, ie. late sixties and early seventies. The sound effects are lifted straight out of the Star Trek memory banks, while the costumes (pastel blue space suits, optimistically lacking gloves) would be at home in an episode of Captain Scarlet or Thunderbirds. Captain Ko's mission is set up like a sixties TV show, with an opening sequence that harks back to an age when lunar landings were surely only months away and the rest of the solar system seemed within humanity's grasp. If you've ever seen Space 1999, you'll be right at home with the film sequences, which contribute to the very 'Gerry Anderson' feel to the whole section. It's full of a joyous optimism and confidence in humanity's prowess that seems naïve with the benefit of hindsight. But it's only naïve to us because we know that interest in the Space Race collapsed after NASA finally won, and funding dried up when competing with the USSR became defunct.

Even though that momentum fell off, a generation still grew up dreaming of the stars and hoping that one day mankind would reach out and walk on more distant planets. But of course, we haven't. The best we've managed so far is a couple of probes out in deep space, and – topically – an explorer on Mars. The Moonbase Alpha of Anderson's Space 1999 is no closer to reality than it was in the 60s, or even in the real 1999.

What's especially touching about this as a tribute is that it could be all about Gene Rodenberry and classic Trek, but it isn't at all. Perhaps it's the British nature of the company, or the slightly low-budget, home-made aesthetic, but this is much more akin to Anderson sci-fi, and the less obvious shows. I think the later soundtrack even had echoes of the Blake's 7 theme, but that could be coincidental.

Lieutenant Stark, Captain Ko and, er, terror.

Dancing Brick deposit Captain Ko and her Lieutenant on the Planet of Rice in the year 2063, when that's the only planet mankind has yet to bring into the fold of its peaceful planetary union. Remember what I said about the optimism with which classic sci-fi sometimes regards the future? The Planet of Rice causes Ko some problems (malfunctioning equipment, difficulty in navigating, that sort of thing) and she finds her self repeating moments, sequences, phrases – over centuries. She loses all celestial reference points, then loses track of her location on the planet and eventually time itself ceases to have any meaning for her. Her robotic companion is only vaguely aware of the discrepancy. She becomes trapped in a loop without realising, and gets excited on discovering evidence that someone has visited the planet before them (it's the map she discarded on arrival).

And then it gets a bit strange.

In amongst the rice of the planet, Ko finds an proper Grandma cardigan and some glasses. Naturally, she puts them on. Her lieutenant sweeps away the detritus of the Planet of Rice (including bits of their spacesuits) like a sweeper of dreams who, at dawn, clears away the clutter of the subconscious to leave the mind clear for the coming day – and Ko transforms into an elderly woman, pottering about her kitchen. The spacesuit remaining under the cardigan reminded me of that generation that grew up with an eye on the stars and the stories TV told them about what was up there. This grandma could well be the girl who, as a child, dreamt of being Captain Ko, exploring the Planet of Rice, but now she's here, in her kitchen, on Earth, alone.

The play's second section – again, about twenty minutes – consists almost entirely of the elderly Ko in a kitchen which is entirely mimed to a recorded soundtrack of sliding drawers, opening and closing cupboards and clinking plates, cups, saucers, etc. It's very domestic, it's hardly the Planet of Rice, and it's far from the dreams of those who watched Neil Armstrong's giant leap for mankind. And in a way, I guess that's kind of the point. Watch closely, and you'll see this woman repeat the same set of processes, roughly, without actually getting anywhere. She boils the kettle a couple of times, but – although she takes a cup and saucer to the table – never actually pours anything out. She moves plates and cutlery around, as if preparing for a (solitary) meal, but it seems that company isn't the only thing she's lacking as she prepares it at least twice over. She gets caught in a loop of recurring events, and gradually time loses all sense of meaning.

Theatrically, this is brave and, I think, shows just how highly Dancing Brick think of their audience. It's twenty minutes of tediously miming out a domestic setting – and there's a lot of kitchen for the audience to hold in their heads. Following it all asks a genuine mental effort, sticking with it and making sense of this section within the play requires an even greater effort. It was too much effort for the ten-year olds, who became restless, and many of the adults looked and sounded like they were struggling. I'll admit that I – with my critic's head in place, brow furrowed analytically – stopped following it and it's only really through writing this now that it's clicking into place for me.

Speaking of things clicking into place, the third section is what really threw the audience on the night I saw the play. The mime section ends when the elderly Ko is joined by one of the aliens from the Cantina band in Star Wars: A New Hope. I know, I know; my fanboy heart skipped a beat. And there once again were the dreams of that generation who thought mankind's first alien contact would be just decades away. Instead, they're waltzing with imaginary figments and preparing for meals they forget to eat. Thinking about it like that, it's actually desperately sad, but at the time it was quite funny, with the apparently random alien and all.

The Mos Eisley Cantina alien dances with an elderly Captain Ko

But what follows is much more down-to-Earth. Except it's on the Mir Space Station. So we're back with the earlier space exploration, although this is real. This time, a Soviet cosmonaut drifts around the Earth's orbit, discovering the effects of no-gravity and space on a human body. His regular updates and chats with Mission Control are charmingly filmed, accurately reflecting the sorts of transmissions often broadcast from space craft to viewers on Earth. The rapport with his Mission Control contact is sweet, and serves to remind him of the planet he leaves behind for over three hundred days. Unfortunately for him, he's up there when the Soviet Union collapses, and the idealogical conflict of the Space Race ceases to matter. Rather than recall their man, the Russians seem to forget about him – hence his longer-than-planned term aboard the Mir Station. Without his regular updates from Mission Control and the established routine, all reference points gone, time ceases to have meaning for the cosmonaut, and he forgets how to engage with anything outside of the station. He ends up just like Ko on the Planet of Rice and the elderly Ko in her kitchen.

Translations from the Russian for Sergei on the Mir Space Station

In the end, I think that's what binds those three sections together – it's the loss of reference points and of the relevance of time. Once that's gone, people disconnect and – outside of space travel, which, contrary to those dreams of classic sci-fi, most of us won't experience – dementia sets in. Read the show's program, and you'll discover that's the heart of the show: the loss of faculties arising from dementia, but explored through the sci-fi filter. Within each of those three sections, memories and time fold inwards and collapse, as dreams and hopes fade away and cease to matter.

Dancing Brick bring a very low-tech approach to their depiction of space travel, which pales beside some of the (also pretty low-tech) footage they screen, showing 60s TV shows doing a better visual job on low budgets. That's not to say Dancing Brick doesn't effectively conjure space, but there's scope for more. They could, for instance, have much more fun with the idea of low gravity.

All of which leaves me quietly pleased to have seen Captain Ko and the Planet of Rice, but perhaps more pleased with the intellectual tussle I faced afterwards. I think I've got somewhere with it all. Possibly.

Please note: a condensed, proper review version of this (after I'd sorted out my thoughts) appears on FringeReview.co.uk, for whom I went to see Captain Ko and the Planet of Rice. That gives it three stars, because the editors disagreed with my fourth star for bravery.