This review has been taken from my NSDF blog, written for the Peter de Haan Charitable Trust.
Performance art piece Angel from DeMontfort University's Open Bracket Productions is curiously infuriating for the audience. A cluttered stage is invaded by strains of opera and disco in equal measure whilst demonic laughter howls from the Doctor, a character dressed in the garb of an absurd ringmaster. One character does come to the fore, a man in white wearing fairy wings, who tells his audience he is stuck going round and round in circles. They are then left to disseminate the repeated images the company create before them with no discernable artistic intention. An aperture of string disrupts the sight lines and can be read as the blinkers on the performance's clarity, yet this answer, like so much else with this piece, is made unavailable to the audience. There is a kernel of content within the piece, the relationship between Man and Doctor is interpretively interesting, but this is never explored enough and the three chess pieces, save for the very end, add nothing to the discourse except further distraction from the only relationship even half established within the work. The ironic ending, a character picking up a book of only images then complaining that there is no story, does leave those watching smiling but this metaphysical farce needs clarity which would help performers and audience alike.
Angel: **
Image courtesy of edge.org and taken from a Robert Foreman performance, no Angel images available.
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