Review – Limbo: show-and-tell
Magic, lights and action.
When the pre-show pre-announcement warns the performance will take place above and around you, they are not kidding.
With the main stage the size of a small dinner table, the six performers – plus an additional three musicians – sing, dance and fly around the audience.
Limbo is a mash-up of dance, song (in French and English), magic, show and tell, and actors defying gravity.
The R18 show – which recently toured London's Southbank and the Sydney Festival – is directed by Scott Maidment and staged on a custom-built set in the Spiegeltent in Aotea Square.
The dream-like steam-punk lighting adds to the party-like environment while the and the multichannel audio allows you to hear each “pop” and “click” as the performers move.
During set changes the musicians (led by Sxip Shirey) jam while the crew sets up dangerous-looking poles, boxes, and cages that look as if they are straight out of American Horror Story, with bottles of alcohol for fire breathing rather than drinking.
The show is presented abruptly – it was only when a half naked woman walked across the stage that I realised the show had begun.
Without a prologue or narration, the audience is left in the dark about what’s coming next, making it difficult to form an emotional connection with the unnamed performers.
Without a narrative to ground the acts, it’s hard to appreciate Limbo as a fully formed show – instead it feels like a series of show-and-tells.
If you have been to a fairground circus in the past 10 years, you would have already seen most of the “dangerous” acts presented, such as sword swallowing and climbing up and down a pole without a safety net.
Despite that, on the night I attended, the audience rose applauding to their feet at the show’s end
Finally, a word of advice: if you are more than six foot tall, don't sit in the seats beside the stage; the performers are literally flying above you.
DURATION: 1hour 15 minutes, no interval.
Tony Siu
Sat, 14 Mar 2015
Sat, 14 Mar 2015
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Review – Limbo: show-and-tell
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