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.
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| Lieutenant Stark, Captain Ko and, er, terror. |
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.
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| The Mos Eisley Cantina alien dances with an elderly Captain Ko |
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| Translations from the Russian for Sergei on the Mir Space Station |
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.
