Reviews

Letting Go

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.