Leaving the Vault Festival on a darkish Thursday night time I used to be immediately conscious of the fantastic thing about the road and the way deeply I used to be able to respiration. It felt oddly as if, within the previous sixty minutes, the burden I’d been carrying with me had been soaked up by another person’s story. Thanks to Beth Bowden and the Right of Way group, I had been reminded of the explanation I fell in love with theatre within the first place. Bowden’s Right of Way is a poetic jewel. Raw and typically heartbreaking, the story is instructed by tangible discovered objects…
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Raw, heartbreaking, and altogether lovely, Beth Bowden’s semi-autobiographical Right of Way is a poetic jewel ready to be uncovered.
Leaving the Vault Festival on a darkish Thursday night time I used to be immediately conscious of the fantastic thing about the road and the way deeply I used to be able to respiration. It felt oddly as if, within the previous sixty minutes, the burden I’d been carrying with me had been soaked up by another person’s story. Thanks to Beth Bowden and the Right of Way group, I had been reminded of the explanation I fell in love with theatre within the first place.
Bowden’s Right of Way is a poetic jewel. Raw and typically heartbreaking, the story is instructed by tangible discovered objects (water, salt, chalk) that are projected and recorded, spoken phrase, poetry and a mixture of motion and monologue. From water to salt to land to path, Bowden takes her captive viewers on a deeply private journey by her life as she explores her connections to highly effective our bodies of water and the ladies who’ve gone earlier than her. For the whole thing of the hour-long efficiency Bowden instructions the stage, wading by a world crammed with immense pleasure and deep sorrow, that appears to embrace her (albeit a little bit too tightly at instances) whereas concurrently expelling these she loves.
Sat within the viewers of the Vault’s Cage I discovered myself crying, misplaced in the fantastic thing about Bowden’s phrases and the all-to-relatable battle of her story. At instances the trains hurtling by overhead even lent themselves to the motion onstage. Unfortunately, at different instances Bowden’s voice struggled to compete with their roar and for a second we grew to become untethered from the story. The incontrovertible fact that the one factor able to pulling the viewers away was a component fully exterior of the manufacturing group’s management, speaks volumes of the standard of their work.
The play’s use of combined media is pleasant and seamlessly executed. In fact, your complete manufacturing exudes meticulous care and a spotlight to element. No merchandise onstage is with out objective and Bowden interacts with every in flip. First soaking herself in water, she then covers herself in chalk, earlier than turning to the hanging luggage of salt that occupy the stage’s 4 corners, to make a degree about persistent sickness that actually appears like salt rubbed into an previous wound. A few instances Bowden’s props even discover their approach into the unsuspecting fingers of her viewers, though to what extent I’ll depart you to find your self.
Right of Way is an hour of magnificence, discovery and honesty that may depart you craving for the style of salt in your tongue, the sensation of filth in your fingers, and the liberty of wind in your hair. And, whereas Right of Way might have completed its present quick run on the Vaults, it undoubtedly received’t be the final we see of it.
Created by: Beth Bowden
Creative Producer: Susannah Bramwell
Right of Way performed as a part of VAULT Festival 2023 and has accomplished its present run. You can discover out extra concerning the present and future dates through their Twitter account right here.