Only One Wing

Miriam Prosser — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 10:35:55 +0000

As someone with chronic fatigue, it’s difficult to write objectively about this play. It had delicacy and gentle humour, at times making me smile and at times breaking me and my heart. I found myself looking around the audience, wondering how many people were there hoping to come away with some insight into an illness or a source of sadness. I suspect I wasn’t the only one.
The play is well acted with Esther’s mother Penn standing out as really superb; both the space and the actor’s bodies were used effectively to transport the audience to both a small girl’s darkened bedroom, and various scenes in a fairy kingdom. The world of the fairy Rhy, was a poetic metaphor for Esther’s suffering, so much of which comes from her belief that she must somehow have caused her illness.
There were moments when I felt a genuine chill of something approaching horror, but I was pulled from the darkness in the same way that the young heroin is pulled back from the darkness – hope for her is hope for the audience.
I was moved by the dawning of hope for Esther but her sudden positivity didn’t sit entirely well with me. My preoccupation with the details of the happy ending – “yes, but how is a fairy with one wing going to fly? How is she going to ger better?” probably says more about me than they do about Only One Wing.
A good play, a brave topic, and a reviewer who went home and cried her eyes out.

4/5

The Vanishing Horizon

Adrian G. Velazquez — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 13:45:27 +0000

After delighting audiences last year with ‘Borges and I’, Idle Motion theatre returns to the Fringe with another stunning onslaught on the senses. A perfect embodiment of physical theatre, ‘The Vanishing Horizon’ leaves you in a constant state of awe due to their creative and innovative storytelling techniques.
In this case, the plot is, without a doubt, secondary to the main selling point: the visual treat Idle Motion perform for us. This is a impressive achievement, to utterly enthral and captivate the audience, where the narrative is the least important factor. A basic timeline on aviation history is interwoven with the story of a woman coming to terms with the death of her grandmother (and the ghosts that populate her family’s life), while her boyfriend is busy in a recording studio, working on his book. But, what is more important is not what is said per se, but the way it is said, and it is this aspect that makes Idle Motion the best physical theatre company out there.
The whole cast excel in a show with no weak links, their voices and performances perfectly complementing each other and the scene at hand. The stage is beautifully presented, and all the props are extremely clever in their effectiveness and creativity. To say much more would be to spoil the experience. See it, breath it, live it, love it.

5/5

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Only One Wing

The Vanishing Horizon