Bertrand’s Toys (Tour – Salford)

Bertrand’s Toys presented by blackSKYwhite is difficult to describe. It is not a play, nor is it dance or circus or any other traditional genre of performance. Rather, it is a movement based performance designed to engross the audience into an alternative and frightening reality based around children’s toys. It is short at only one hour and there are only two performers.

There is no narrative to speak of but obvious themes do emerge as the piece progresses. It’s clear there is a sexual element, particularly in the early stages and the interaction between the two performers is a little homoerotic, but as the performers appear to be playing children’s toys, however grotesque and unreal, the emerging themes are quite disturbing.

The principal problem with the performance is that it becomes tiresome very quickly and this is due to the fact that there little variation of any sort throughout the performance. Despite regular changes of outfits the two performers spend the whole hour repeating mostly the same movements in the same small area of the stage and it soon becomes tedious.  Likewise the backing track is dreadfully dull and thumps away loudly for the hour with minimal variation.

However, there is no denying that the two performers, Marcella Soltan and Andrej Ivashnev, are unique and brilliant at their specific style of movement. There are moments of genuine intrigue where the movement is so robotic and puppet like that it almost becomes an illusion to disorientate the audience.   

Alas, this is not enough to provide interest for the hour. Several audience members walked out mid performance and, if I am to be perfectly honest, had I not been reviewing I would followed suit and left half way through too.

– Malcolm Wallace