Good performances, good script, excellent music and a production that is engrossing in parts but did it manage to communicate the intended message?
Physical theatre group dANTE OR dIE - why do physical theatre groups mess about with capital letters? - tell a catch-all story of the plight of (I think) the mentally ill, with Sarah Sproull and Terry O'Donovan portraying the passage of the titular Caliper Boy from being locked, dreaming in his Victorian cell to being ‘cared for' in the community in modern day Britain.
Physicality is excellent - dancer Sproull is well thought of in her native New Zealand - and of course shoeless. Physical and experimental theatre companies never, ever wear shoes on stage. And while there is a ‘why am I here?' moment at around 20 minutes, the overall production is an engaging experience.
Perhaps it is the constant changing of Sproull and O'Donovan as the lead, the other playing a sort of schizophrenic headvoice, perhaps it is the use of the space or the snatches of text that burst through the babble, but something in this piece mesmerises.
Sproull is of particular note in her physical interpretation of both mental and physical disability, while O'Donovan's babble trickles through the piece musically.
Without a doubt all is helped by ‘cutting edge acoustic folk band' Left With Pictures' wonderfully disjointed soundtrack played live. The band is the real discovery of the production. Intriguing and worth seeing.
CAMDEN GAZETTE - nov. 2006
THE Camden People's Theatre plays host to Caliper Boy, a macabre mix of dance and physical theatre set to rather wonderful live music provided by folk band Left With Pictures.
According to the mysterious London street artist that created him, Caliper Boy was born in 1819 to a Soho prostitute. He has stalked the forgotten alleyways and abandoned buildings of the capital along with the rest of the dispossessed ever since.
In the hands of the Dante or Die Theatre Company, Caliper Boy becomes a study in alienation. He is given life through the performances of Terry O'Donovan and Sarah Sproull who interact with each other so closely that they almost become one and we see Caliper Boy for what he is - a kind of archetype for the outsider in us all. We watch him grope his way through the darkness of life, yearning to find his true place, his voice a cacophonous noise that only occasionally finds shape and meaning.
This all makes for a rather disconcerting theatrical experience and one is sometimes left rather adrift and wishing that the performance would return to a more coherent form. However, just when the audience is in danger of disengaging entirely, Left With Pictures appear with another song whose perfect melodies and poetic lyrics offer some sort of commentary on the action. Indeed, one might say they are the glue that holds the production together.
In all, this is a largely successful piece. It is worth seeing for the discomfort and incongruous lift it inspires. - EDWARD SHEPHERD
dANTE OR dIE
Camden People's Theatre
Review by Lennie Varvarides (2006)
Caliper Boy is a simple story about the childhood of a lonely boy who wants to fit into a society that he does not completely understand; his search for his absent farther and his ability to see beauty in a rotten strawberry. Pictures are created physically through the bodies of performer Terry O'Donovan and Dancer Sarah Sproull. Aurally through the deliberately disjointed text (Anthea Neagle) and highly enjoyable live folk music (Left With Pictures, who worked in collaboration with dANTE OR dIE resident Musical Director, Yaniv Fridel). Words and images work together to recreate the legendary Soho bordello where the twelve year old boy (born to a Soho prostitute) was locked up because his mother was ashamed of him.
Director Daphna Attias pushes the theatrical possibilities to the limit in every project, not only testing the work, herself, the collaborators, but also the audience's expectations. I feel fortunate to have experienced three out of four of their devised pieces since the company was formed in 2004. Each time I am pleasantly surprised and inspired. It was refreshing to see a fringe production where the audience is not spoon-fed through a linear story and where you are left questioning the relationships between the performers, the performers and the audience, and the text with the live music.
So, what is the recipe for innovative theatre? It's called funding and when you put funding and creativity together, you get Caliper Boy . Thanks to the Arts Council England, The National Lottery's Awards for All fund, Royal Victoria Hall Foundation and the Tonic program at Camden Peoples Theatre, dANTE OR dIE have devised a deeply visual theatrical experience. The fact that this visual experience is created with a minimum set of two pillows, two wall ladders and some red yarn is evidence of the visionary ability of both Michelle Reader, (Scenographer) and of dANTE OR dIE.
Physical Theatre might be a little alienating for some audiences because it uses a different vocabulary and for those audiences let me say this: let the metaphors over power you, you don't have to understand everything.
TIME OUT - nov 2006
(this one's the least complimentary...hence its position at the bottom!! - stu)
Rating: 3/6
It's usually a bad sign when the first ten minutes of a show are taken up with the performers doing handstands and counting in a darkened corner. In fact, despite this inauspicious start, Dante or Die's new devised work proves intermittently gripping, although the inspired passages frustratingly refuse to coalesce into a satisfying whole.
‘Caliper Boy' is based on a graffiti character who – so the performance notes say – escaped from the basement in which he had been holed away by his prostitute mother in order to invade London's psyche and seek an answer to the (potentially comical) question: ‘Why aren't I like the other children, mother?' You'd be lucky to work any of that out just by watching the on-stage action, mind. The first real ‘speech' is a rapid stream-of-consciousness monologue (‘I want an oven-baked potato – I've got itchy feet') delivered upside down; later spoken-word contributions are hardly less enigmatic.
There are two principal performers (Terry O'Donovan and dancer Sarah Sproull) who twist and writhe expressively, and a gaggle of musicians (DoD's Yaniv Fridel and members of folksters Left With Pictures) who strum, blow and bang with aplomb to produce haunting soundscapes. But the piece lacks a distinctive, coherent narrative voice. Perhaps this failure in the storytelling department would matter less if the space were more interesting. In the past DoD have performed onboard ships and in disused aircraft hangars – Camden People's Theatre's black box, by comparison, offers few possibilities for truly revelatory mise-en-scène.
Robert Shore , Tue Nov 28