REVIEW: My Long Journey Home
- Posted on March 5, 2007 9:40 AM
- 0 comments
NIE Present ‘My Long Journey Home’
Battersea Arts Centre
By Laura Yates
I was very excited about the prospect of viewing the NIE production of ‘My Long Journey Home’ at the Battersea Arts Centre (BAC). I was most certainly right to! The NIE is a Theatre company which is unique from others in the way that the actors/performers perform in 5 different languages. This therefore makes the productions and issues raised far more accessible to a wider audience.
‘My Long Journey Home’ is the first play of a trilogy ‘The End of Everything Ever’ which explores true stories and real accounts of the Kindertransport – a scheme which helped children escape the persecution in Nazi Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia.
Before entering the auditorium, the audience gained a taster (quite literally!) of what was to follow whereby the play’s three ‘narrators’ entertained us with live singing and music, appropriate to the piece and offered us small glasses of whiskey. This initial communication immediately made me more curious as to what was to follow!
The NIE uses contemporary European stories as the basis for devising original theatre performances. This particular play examines the story of a young Hungarian boy ‘Andras Toma’ who joined the Russian army and was ‘lost’ for 53 years attempting escape and suffering the torment of been forced into a mental institution for all the wrong reasons. What NIE have achieved in this production is conveying a tragic and poignant story in a comical light. The three narrators are outstanding in performance, portraying a range of different characters that have depth and individuality. The comic timing of the three actors was perfect and I imagine a degree of improvisation is required with each performance. However, despite the comedy initially appealing to our humour and making the audience laugh, for myself, somehow this enhanced the poignancy and tragedy of the piece. The actor who played Andras had an immense vulnerability about him which was enhanced fantastically by the abruptness of the three narrators.
Using Andras’s story as a starting point NIE blend styles, traditions and a confusion of languages to create a performance that can almost be described as ridiculous. The show uses an amalgamation of live music, singing, clowning, mime, and animation in a performance that has been described as ‘total theatre’. I almost felt part of the story when the actors quite literally climbed through the audience at one particular point. This really achieved a connection between the audience and theme of the story. It is very easy to forget history and how it has contributed and influenced how we exist today. This production is extremely thought provoking and gives the audience a glimpse of a real person enduring these awful experiences.
What the NIE demonstrate in this production and others is due to their members originating from different European backgrounds, training and tradition this leads to an exchange of many different ideas. The uniting of these different elements has created a piece of theatre which is unique, remarkable, educational and entertaining. It explores not only one person’s tale but also the misunderstanding and betrayal of the system, and the need to be heard which is a universal issue. And to be able to do all this in a comical yet touching way….I was most certainly impressed!
The NIE will be performing ‘The End of Everything Near’ at the Battersea Arts Centre until 18th March 2007. 19:30 (Sun 17.30pm, Sat 3 Mar 8pm).
£12.00 (Concessions £7.00/Tuesdays Pay What You Can).
Read the review of Past Half Remembered on now at the BAC.
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