The Stage

The Red Room

Published Tuesday 22 September 2009 at 17:50 by Thom Dibdin

Grotesquely compelling but opaquely plotted, David Hughes and Al Seed’s take on Edgar Allan Poe’s The Mask of the Red Death gets inside the emotions of the original. Any neophyte audience members, however, do not stand a chance of understanding what it is they are seeing.

Which is something of a blemish for director Seed on this otherwise stunning piece of work. Hughes’ choreography is an exciting fusion of forms that is based in the contemporary, bringing in the formal set dances of the European Royal Courts and the moves of modern street dance, incredibly, without losing the grace of the former or the vitality of the latter.

Eve Lambert’s costumes are white elegance - indicating courtly rank while allowing room for movement and a blank surface for Alberto Santos Bellido’s subtle lighting. Guy Vealke’s music is an enthralling combination of industrial noise and courtly madrigal.

The performances are masterful in their control, particularly of the twitchy, popping technique used to indicate the effect of the Red Death. Seeta Patel sets it up beautifully as the Queen, both serene and visceral as Hughes’ Prince emerges from beneath her skirts. Stuart Bowden is a brilliantly tumbling Fool, whose murder by the Prince precipitates the court’s demise.

Most memorable of all, is a duet between Lina Limosani’s debauched and degraded Nun, worked like a puppet on strings, by the pecking motions of a dancer in a huge-beaked bird mask. Bold, vulgar, decadent and cruel, the individual scenes are more effective than the faulty, over-arching narrative.