Avalanche
Streaming Online • JAN 7TH - FEB 7TH 2021 • www.ticketsignite.com/event/3644/avalanche
When is a play not a play… when, in these seemingly endless days of lockdown, imaginative theatre companies are having to explore alternative avenues to get their productions seen. Some have periodically been able to stage productions during the more relaxed tiers of lockdown, like Lambco (featured in issue 24), who took up residency in a brand new, social distancing compliant outdoor venue The Garden Theatre in Vauxhall. Others have taken to online streaming so that their productions can be viewed from the comfort of the audiences own homes, the latter fast becoming the favoured alternative during this sadly elongated period of closed theatres. Whilst venues like The National Theatre have been digging deep into their archive for filmed performances to put on in a streamed season of hit productions from the past, smaller but equally compelling companies are starting to produce new box-fresh productions of which Avalanche, from Bloom Theatre, is one.
Written by the companies own creatives Simon Fraser and Jack Albert Cook (the writer of 2018’s impressive Fast Love), Bloom Theatre had previously come to our attention through the curation of their highly commendable ’Saplings’ showcase events, bringing new and original queer voices to the theatre. The director of Avalanche, Alistair Wilkinson, has a similar history, having himself been the artistic director of WoLab who found their own innovative way of bringing new writers and actors to the stage. These exciting initiatives have provided some memorable moments of queer theatre.
It was therefore great to see that they were collaborating to transform Avalanche from its intended stage debut into a newly filmed version. (Available to stream online until Feb 7th). Within that process Avalanche has become a strange hybrid of film and theatre, the added ability to edit, layer and jump-cut being too much of a temptation for Wilkinson to resist. Whilst visual devices like these are used sparingly throughout, it still seems a brave move given these montages and jump-cuts somehow distance the performance from its originally intended stage roots, whilst never actually committing fully too this more film-like aesthetic.
In this one man play, Sonny Poon Tip plays Alex, a young, introverted man who’s life has been lived, for the most part, on snow covered mountains where he has been diligently skiing from an early age. It’s a place where he feels completely in control of his life and thoughts, but this all changes when an event that follows a party celebrating his ski-teams competition win, shatters his life forever. Surprisingly, it is in this latter half of the play that Sonny’s portrayal feels most in tune with his character, having previous taken us on a somewhat ponderous journey of laid-back reflection to get there. This is not helped by the camera remaining stubbornly locked on Sonny’s head and shoulders, limiting just how much physicality he is able to bring to the role.
Many filmed theatrical productions have to circumvent the problem of the camera pre-determining where on the stage we collectively look as an audience, given that in an actual theatre our eyes would be allowed to roam freely across the stage, self editing our own version of the performance in doing so. Whilst this is not so much of an issue here, given that Avalanche is a one-man play, having this mostly static performance introduced by a title-like sequence of frenetic jump cuts is a strange juxta-position, it taking a while to then resettle into the more theatrically paced rhythm of the performance that follows, but by the time the character reveals the devastating circumstances that follow an unplanned drunken evening, I still found myself both hooked and engaged enough to be moved as Alex’s story unfolds.
Whilst there are also a number of technical limitations apparent throughout this production, (the audio is not always as clear as it could be), Avalanche ultimately still manages to pack a punch when it needs to, and with an unexpected turn of events, Sonny’s performance hits a new level, creating a moving shift in the story. This transition would have had more impact, and added greater dimension to Alex’s character, had there been a bit more light brought to the performance before events turn decidedly darker. The performance is a competent one however, and despite the few too many elongated pauses that are uniformly peppered throughout Sonny’s performance, the story still finds the power to move.
For me, It is the writing that remains the star of this particular show, there being multiple moments in the dialogue that genuinely impress. I don’t know if there are plans to give Avalanche a theatrical outing once lockdown subsides, but by bringing a bit more physicality and a greater emotional arc of the performance, I would definitely want to see this again. All of that being said, this filmed version of Avalanche is a welcome addition to the streamed theatre experience and as such Bloom Theatre should not only be supported, but commended for shining a light on such important subject matter.
★★★
