Reviews OWE & Fringe Published 23 March 2015

These Trees are Made of Blood

Southwark Playhouse ⋄ 18th March - 11th April 2015

Goodbye to Buenos Aires.

Verity Healey

This flamboyant cabaret piece set in Argentina after the demise of Eva Peron concludes with a homage to the French installation artist Christian Boltanski. To say how would be to spoil things, except that, out of two hours of song and dance, it is the most moving moment by far. What happens in between the audience ‘warm up’ and this poignant denouement though, is nearly as much a mystery as the ‘Disappeared’ of the Dirty War: a Military campaign in Argentina between 1976 to 1983 to dispose of anyone associated with socialism.

The show has its obvious antecedents in Cabaret. The Kit Kat Klub here becomes the Coup Coup Club, a seedy and decadent place, with its love of transgression, satire, cheap thrills and cheap laughs. Socialism and sensuality don’t get a look in. Our Master of Ceremonies is the Greg Barnett’s General, while his side kicks are Naval Command Officer Neil Kelso and Alexander Luttley’s Wing Commander. Instead of the heavy claustrophobic feel of the outgoing decadent Weimar Republic and the dangerous whiff of the incoming Hitler era in this sweaty seedy environment, we have a hint of nostalgia for Peronism and a premonition of the terrors the junta will now reign down upon communist sympathisers: rape, torture and death.

The cabaret style is European in nature and the songs pack an intellectual punch as we glibly sip our wines and beers and think about eating empanadas. We are the culpable cabaret audience in the Playhouse’s tiny studio space, now the junta’s HQ, we are the citizens of Buenos Aires, watching a cartoon leader stride around on stage and introduce us, via cruel puns and seedy acts, to the rest of the Junta hierarchy. The company incite a little tension too when something goes magically amiss with an audience member which has important narrative implications later on. There’s also much about the body politic: cabaret is all about bodies after all, transvestitism and transgression and the parallels with what the Argentinian Military did to its people are made obvious.

But we don’t really feel like we are in Buenos Aires. And the missing daughter narrative, the one who is taken by the government for attending a protest about bus fares which forms the core of the production – eliciting some fine acting from Val Jones as the anguished mother, Gloria, and Charlotte Worthing as ‘disappeared’ student, Ana – feels tacked on and takes a while to get going. The character depictions are not polyphonic and each is set up in counterpoint to the other. But this means that the grotesque depictions of the evil military makes the feel of the Junta trial nonsensical.

By the end of Amy Draper’s production I was wondering: why? Why describe what happened to these people if there is nothing else to this production than that? How much further forward have we come? In terms of understanding the Junta, not much, as we are not really asked, no matter how hard that may be, to see their actions in tandem with Argentina’s political and social upheaval. Rather we are just thrown into things with a song and a dance and while it is true that we must know and must not forget the terrible atrocities the Junta committed, we need also to understand why.

Perhaps the point of the show is to be a monument to the thousands killed and only that. A tribute to Argentina’s mothers who are still pushing for justice in contempt of a government trying to silence their voices. Cabaret is usually seen as a counter balance to the exhaustive nature of greater art. Ironically, this makes it an ideal vehicle to tackle dark and emotional subjects. But for all the talented cast and cabaret artistes here,  I cannot help but feel a sense of anti-climax. The metaphor is lost somewhere amid all the bawdy acts and exhibitionism, which slightly undermines the voices of those who were murdered. The show’s saving grace, I feel, is its emphasis on the victimised women and their redemption.

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Verity Healey

Verity writes for and contributes to Ministry of Counterculture and is a film facilitator for Bigfoot Arts Education. She is also a published short story writer and filmmaker.

These Trees are Made of Blood Show Info


Produced by Theatre Bench

Directed by Amy Draper

Written by Paul Jenkins

Cast includes Greg Barnett, Rachel Dawson, Val Jones, Neil Kelso, Alexander Luttley, Eilon Morris, Anne-Marie Piazza, Josh Sneesby, Charlotte Worthing

Link http://southwarkplayhouse.co.uk/the-little/these-trees-are-made-of-blood/

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