Letting Go

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The piece begins by asking us to consider what we are losing as letter writing is overtaken and eaten away by text messages, emails and internet chat. The company explore this question through a range of stories with letters at their heart.

There are some occasional hints that the piece might take off in an interesting direction. Letters from a dead soldier are used as puppets in a re-enactment of his last days and, as these important individual documents are torn or crumpled, we are reminded of the fragility of the human body, and the bravery of committing your feelings to paper is compared with going into war. Unfortunately these moments are the exception and the piece’s focus is on safe and familiar territory.

Letting Go is punctuated by a series of lengthy blackouts which segregate the ideas being explored and never allow them to collide in order that the audience might discover something of their own in the material. The young company perform with sincerity and conviction but overall the piece is a series of vignettes that, although linked, never attempt to draw any meaningful answers to the question it poses at the start.

- by Chris Hill