Irish firm LipZinc Theatre carry the skittish Kites to the VAULT Festival
“We can always just make a new one”
Tzarini Meyler’s Kites proves a barely odd expertise within the echoing chamber of the Cage. A rites of passage drama set in post-WWII Ireland, it follows the friendship between two younger women and unpacks the affect of the non-public and societal trauma of the age on them each, monitoring how that unfolds because the years go by.
Kitty is from Cork and Angel is a refugee from Spain and as their kites get tousled within the sky one afternoon, so too do their lives turn into enmeshed. They swap goals of flying like Peter Pan and area travels and shortly graduate to sharing cigarettes and tips about strolling in heels and as they develop up, that harm comes more and more to bear, testing their relationship to its restrict.
Ideas of childhood play resonate strongly all through however while it is a neat conceit, the execution leaves the manufacturing feeling tonally uncertain. Evocations of girlishness are overstated, in order that it feels infantile at instances, relatively than child-like. And the usage of a narrator by voiceover is equally overdone, at odds with how darkish the story will get at instances.
Meyler (Kitty) and Ana Canals (Angel) supply up fascinating work, particularly across the emotional complexities of childhood trauma however because it presently stands, the play doesn’t supply them sufficient depth of character to flee each nationwide and gender stereotypes. A piece in progress maybe.