Latest from Noises Off
In a Cave, a disclaimer…
You must be alone. Close the door. Turn off lights. And your heating, if possible. Before the piece has even begun the listener is delivered these instructions, and there is an instant giddiness. Writer Rebekah King breezes over this ritual in the post-show Q&A, impeccably capturing the physicality I was experiencing: In a Cave overtakes your impulses, like a child fervently forging a pillow fort or den. In the first 60 seconds of In a Cave we become swallowed by our own imaginations.
In a Cave, a voice…
A single voice, hostile at first but warming to our unexpected presence. She details her life, her family, her surroundings, her anxieties. Claire Chung soars in this piece, the titular voice whose tenderness and naiveté feels like a hand gently clasped over our own as she leads us through her fables. A single voice, Chung only choosing to alter her voice in sparse moments – representing her father, for example – the imagination of the listener is free to roam wild. We paint every face, every landscape described, for ourselves.
In a Cave, a goodbye…
Pembroke Players’ piece left me oddly nostalgic, its simplicity and purity connecting me to a child-like fantasy. Even as the play’s ending looms, the joy in Chung’s voice waning, the emotional resolve is carried with a sophisticated elegance, our raconteur leaving us by the firelight where our journey began. King’s script is simply sublime; written to be lost in. The experience of In a Cave is a masterclass in a form of theatre the pandemic cannot tarnish. A year after theatres closed their doors, audio plays like this are inevitable, storytelling at its most primal. Intimate and colourful, Pembroke Players’ piece deftly demonstrates the power of this re-emerging theatrical experience.
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