by Jenny Kemp
At Playbox Merlin Theatre until
April, 1996
Reviewed by Kate Herbert around 26
March 1996
Jenny Kemp is an angel in our theatre
and in The Black Sequin Dress we hear her wings fluttering. It is a hypnotic
exploration of the Jungian landscape of a woman's mind.
A woman of 40-something wearing a black sequin
dress walks into a night club, crosses the polished ebony floor, experiences a
sense of dread, looks back, turns and falls.
Nothing
happens but everything is revealed. It is all strangely, sublimely, distressing.
She is damaged, alone, venturing out at "that confusing age",
luminous on the outside but inside, a "cess pool" of terrifying
images.
We revisit
the fall over and over. Each female actor re-enacts it. She is all four women .
One memorable moment is when the man (Ian Scott) who is attracted to her in the
club, sits with all four women who speak for one.
This is a
visually striking show. Film footage accompanies voice-overs of the life of
Undine and her daughter in her brick-walled suburban home. The stark grandeur of Jaqueline Everett's
stage design and Ben Cobham's evocative lighting are intrinsic components in
the atmosphere of this beautiful production.
The
ensemble (four women, two men) is exceptional, with a particular accolade for
Margaret Mills who glitters with a strange ethereal light on stage. They work
in an abstract foundation of movement and impulse and the outcome is rich,
disarming and moving.
There is
something profoundly female in Jenny Kemp's concept and realisation - and I do not
mean humourlessly feminist or prettily girlish. It has a purity of vision which
simply touches womanly ideas, sensitivities, images, sexuality and dreams. It
almost bypasses the intellectual process to reach one's core.
Its
penetration of the psyche was complete. My companion slipped and fell to the
floor on leaving the theatre. Subliminal messages? It somehow completed the
evening.
KATE
HERBERT
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