“You followed the fear
of being forgotten and so did I…”
Theatre in the Arcola can often have a more visceral edge
given the intimacy of the playing area but when a shirtless Moe Bar-el swung
round at the audience slicing a real knife through an imaginary canvas well,
you could feel the collective twitch. Bar-el is a very physical presence and
that moment of rage was a key point in Marion Bott’s impressive new play.
Bott is a French-German writer, working in four different
languages and she wrote Moormaid after learning that two of her former
classmates had become radicalised and gone off to fight for ISIS, never to
return. This is a now familiar tale but Bott was shocked by the banal views
surrounding the issue: what really makes educated European men go to war in
this “godless” age? Her solution to crafting an answer or at least an
examination of the questions is ingenious and will live long in my memory.
Walnuts are cracked, knives are wielded, there’s dancing and
body painting… as three characters go in search of their truth amidst the
background clatter of faith, blinding routine and fear.
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| Sarah Alles and Moe Bar-El - all photos courtesy of Anika Wagner |
Sarah Alles is an experienced young German actor making her
UK stage debut and, she is exceptional, able to convey so much through huge
eyes that well-up with tears in an extraordinary physical display of
micro-managed emotion. She reminded me of Isabelle Huppert in this respect and her
grace, whether contemplating hanging herself with her favourite scarf or being,
literally, flung around in the mighty arms of Moe Bar-el.
She plays Melissa, a disaffected artist who has run out of
passion and is slowly killing herself teaching bored students in a Berlin
college, whilst being married to someone called Simon (sorry Simons, but it
doesn’t sound exciting…). She hasn’t painted anything worthwhile for two years
and decides to end it all.
At eleven minutes past eleven (remember…) just as she’s
about to fall from the living room table, there’s a knock on the door and she
opens it to find Mehdi (Bar-el) a former student who she hasn’t seen for two
years. Their relationship was more, and there are issues still rankling as
Mehdi explains he felt he had to see her now, following a premonition: “you always said, you believed in signs…”
Melissa lets Mehdi sleep on the couch and as he prays he’s
joined by his “brother” Khan (Ali Azhar – a French-Moroccan actor also making
his UK theatre debut) who has somehow followed him. The two bicker over
something as yet unspoken and before long we realise that Khan is dead or as
they both say, “in-between” life and heaven with no sign of the virgins
promised to martyrs. Whether Khan is a real ghost or not is immaterial (much
like him…) as he is on Mehdi’s conscience and he’s not the only one.
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| Ali Azhar and Moe Bar-El - photo courtesy of Anika Wagner |
Melissa wakes Mehdi up at 3:30 AM and gets him to start
painting getting him to name his brush, hers is Calypso and his is Al Pacino.
They paint each other’s faces and dance to modern music, aligned and alive for
the first time in a while…
Khan appears again, Melissa doesn’t see him and the boys
muck about like kids impersonating the great Pacino in Scarface: “you need people
like me…” And, they are indeed people like Scarface having fought and, in one
case, died, along with members of their family, in Khan’s case his seven-year
old son. Khan was an architect and could have gone on to make his mark, instead
he gave his life…
Melissa and Mehdi finally acknowledge their romantic
interest in a superbly choreographed dance in which he lifts her up around and
under in alarming fashion as they exchange panted dialogue: it’s very effective
and dramatic proof of the beauty they can make. Only after this intimate connection can the two engage in
the most heated of arguments. The truth will out, and you will just have to see
the play to find out what that is.
Zois Pigadas directs with energy and invention and her three
actors are full of humour as well as exuberance. This is a difficult subject
and whilst Bott’s language dances its message around what could be an ugly
confrontation the actors pull you in and you care about all of them. And, you
have to, because all outrage aside, its only through the effort of
understanding that we can make sense of destruction and alleviate the misery of
constant negativity as all round we’re bombarded with mixed messages and
attempts to create and channel hatred.
Sarah Alles is transfixing whether breaking walnuts with a
whisky bottle, dancing or despairing and her physical/emotional interplay with Moe
Bar-el is so very effective – a highly potent mix in the Arcola’s intimacy. Ali
Azhar has most of the best jokes even though his character is dead; this ghost
has a twinkle in his eye and a route to redemption.
Moormaid plays at the
Arcola Theatre until 19th May and it’s not to be missed.
Ithankyou Rating: **** Guaranteed to make you feel, a wondrous cast.
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