Remor

Running at only 11 minutes, one could be forgiven for thinking that (remor) is a piece that is easy, unnecessary or aimless. In fact, it is everything but. (remor) is beautiful. It is tiny, a little incoherent, and cramped in the space of a cube modelled on the prison cell in which it was devised, and that is the beauty of it and its story.

Love transcends the language barrier in film, theatre and music, and here it is visible in the movements of the couple as they fling themselves together, apart and against the space in which they are confined. No words are spoken, just the animal grunts of coupling and violence, as the pair move almost perfectly in and out of the bed frame to convey their darkest emotions in the smallest of all dimensions. They are pressed for time and space, but they are not pressed for heart or soul. The emotion one sees in the faces of both performers is real, heart-breaking and constantly changing, half frustration, half arousal, and frequently agonised as they are ripped apart and thrown back together again. (remor) as a piece does not need words to express the confinement it feels, with a grasp of gritty emotion rather than a reliance on a witty repartee which could lose intensity and drama in its time.

The prison setting gives it its strengths – the darkness is palpable as is the light we find when the audience is invited to use the torches provided to light the piece. As an audience we are compelled to find the emotion with these small beams of light, the beauty or the beast, and in the dark we focus on the glimpses we get into a world which is mostly private, encapsulated in a romance which falls apart as we gaze on.

The BE Festival ran in Birmingham from the 2-6 July 2013. It will return next year. For further information, please visit the BE Festival website.