Beauty, creativity and decay are neatly entwined in this latest show from the Anglo-German company Gob Squad, who riff on the triangle of relationships in Oscar Wilde’s A Picture of Dorian Gray between Basil the painter, Lord Henry the spectator and Dorian the subject or artwork.
If that sounds a mite dry, well, yes, sometimes it is. But it is also slyly funny. As Johanna Freiburg, Berit Stumpf and Simon Will are joined on stage by a group of guest performers ranging in age from 19 to their late 60s, all of whom are used to being gazed at, this becomes a woozily beautiful meditation on intention, perception, what we see and what remains invisible.
The guest performers become the art objects: arranged and wheeled across the stage in heroic poses; left gazing into mirrors or a video camera as if searching for their own souls; repeatedly taking their bows on stage.
What makes this poignant is the sense that it is personal for everyone involved. The trio of drama students, still unmoulded by life, put their best side forward to the camera as they search for identity and happiness. The older group know that there is more behind them than in front, and that they are heading towards their final exit.
Stuck in the middle of this endlessly reflecting triptych, which turns the stage into a metaphorical hall of mirrors, is Gob Squad. They are no longer theatre’s radical young iconoclasts, but middle-aged and facing up to personal and professional challenges. You could think of this show as their midlife crisis, but it is an artful one that melds post-dramatic theatre with ikebana, the Japanese art of flower arranging, to suggest that while youth and beauty stop us in our tracks and make us stare, the ravages of decay and time bring something beautiful, too.
- At Attenborough Centre, Brighton, until 27 May. Box office: 01273 709709. At Southbank Centre, London, 4-7 June.
