Reviews

November 24th 2008

Zoo Indigo, an Anglo-German performance company based in Nottingham, previewed their new show last week. It’s a smasher.

Under the Covers is a sweet and funny and painful look at motherhood, work, performance, and loss. Which sounds rather Anglo-German, but given that it consists mainly of the two performers re-enacting scenes from Thelma and Louise while asking the audience to keep an eye on their sleeping babies (live images of whom are projected onto the stage courtesy of Skype), and having heartfelt dialogues with cardboard cut-outs of their partners, and giving cakes to the audience, it’s mainly just a lot of fun. The virtual presence of the sleeping babies is surprisingly powerful: one theme running through the show is that of the sense of entrapment many new parents can feel, and the tension between loving a child and wanting to escape it, and the looming presence of these breathing and wriggling entities (made ghostly both by their virtual distance and by the infra-red cameras used to film them) cleverly illustrates this tension.
Another theme of the show, that motherhood and work and youth and relationship and the intersections between all four can be experienced as a series of layered performances, is of course illustrated by the fact that the audience is watching… a series of layered performances. And one of the intriguing aspects of the show is the way in which performance and fiction are interwoven with simple from-the-life truth telling. At once startlingly confessional and inventively playful, this is a show which is both uncomfortable and affirming. If that’s possible.

Jon McGregor
Writer
www.jonmcgregor.com