“So, what’s this about then?” I’d just convinced someone to come with me to this theatre review I was supposed to be doing, and she asked the killer question. What were we going to see? I think I mumbled something about Yorkshire folklore and shrugged a bit. Nothing I’d read about the play had even vaguely suggested what we were in for.
Looking back on it, I can see why. It was a production that wasn’t easily identified, and relied on twisting multi-facets of a greater whole to weave a magnificent spell. Having said that, it had a clear and accessible plotline, and a real sense of what it was about. It was unified, but far cleverer than it would have been if it had just been the plotline.
It wasn’t a play in the traditional sense, in that it wasn’t set on a central stage, but rather distributed organically through a building, the York Brewery, giving the evening a startling character and yet also making it personal and homely. The variety of different settings this created meant that the whole audience had a distinct experience of the performance; Effie and I saw differing parts and versions of various performances, making conversation after the production much more interesting, sewing together our different perspectives and feelings.
But the main thing that threaded through the performance and made it one was the general juxtaposition of awkwardness and humour. Every last bit of the evening was not only funny, in the way that it engaged the audience and created ludicrous situations and characters, but also horrifically disconcerting, which did a wonderful job in building tension and creating unease and almost a sense of fear. It was an evening of amusement and relaxation, but at the same time an evening that seriously involved you in the action, making you care with a passion.
All in all, ‘The Night of the Barghest’ was a fun and engaging evening of performance and theatre. The acting was exemplary and sparked off the audience with wit and dark emotion, all gradually building up into a thrumming frenzy of ingenious force and originality. It wasn’t a play you watched. It was a play you experienced and felt in your very fibre.