An interesting couple of hours in the Theatre Arena, which is already running nearly an hour behind schedule (I ran into a friend who’s performing with Tristan Bates Theatre in the late slot and they weren’t on until after 2am last night!).

Paines Plough, now a Latitude staple, are this year presenting Traces, written by six young writers on its Future Perfect scheme for nurturing new talent. Loosely held together by the story of Liane, a celebrity haunted by the suicide of her father, it takes place over the course of a day as we encounter, through a series of short scenes, a collection of disparate characters facing various emotional blockages.

Although at times the dialogue sounds like that of a bad soap opera, there are definite traces of talent here. The young cast work confidently with material that isn’t in truth well suited to the noisy environs of Latitude. Intitmate character studies never do tend to work well in large tented arenas, particularly with the distant thuds of the music stage drifting through the trees. But nevertheless, some touch and also laugh-out-loud moments (mostly supplied by a wannabe goth character) ensured the company could leave the stage with heads held high.

The change of gear after Traces was marked, as DryWrite entered the arena bearing a multitude of coloured hats which they distributed to their prospective audience. A neat trick this, not only making it more likely said audience members will stick around, but also making the whole experience slightly more immersive. The whole point of the hats is that we wear the appropriate colour for the character we think is most likely to win the ensuing on-stage scuffle. Three fights are held in all, each scripted by a different writer to explore various aspects of violence, introduced by a spectacular orgy of violence set to tune of Nessun Dorma (picture below).

The first was the highlight - a suburban family playing scrabble as a WWF-style commentator analysed their every move. “She’s gonna blow!” he cried as the mother reached breaking point after the father brought up the subject of a previous infidelity. If you’re familiar with the animation Celebrity Death Match, this was about as close as you get to its theatrical equivalent.

That was followed by a rather tame boxing weigh-in spoof, before two brothers preparing a dance for their mother escalated into the third and final bout (the bigger brother finally winning by persuading his younger sibling to finish the dance). Despite rather tailing off after its initial promise, DryFight was perfect festival fare - loud, bawdy, in-yer-face and more than a little bit dirty.

- Theo Bosanquet

This entry was posted on Friday, July 17th, 2009 at 5:53 pm and is filed under Latitude. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.