There are two things calculated to make the stomach lurch: one is being in a lift that is descending very fast, the other is falling in love. They come together in this latest piece from Imitating the Dog. The audience is placed in a lift where, through the opening and closing doors, you can glimpse a love story unfolding. It has a fatal twist.
Beginning in a room littered with thousands of photos of the same woman, and where a typewriter spews out lists of Christian names, the show promises something out of the ordinary when we are ushered into a lift. Those suffering from motion sickness are advised not to enter although, alas, what follows is not going to give Alton Towers any competition.
A video panel on one wall evokes the sensation of falling via optical illusion, and also jump starts a lonely-hearts saga. The protagonists are then seen through the lift doors in various situations - a restaurant, bar, hotel bedroom and terrace - as the romance develops.
Curiously, apart from the placing of the audience and the use of film, this is in many ways an old-fashioned piece of theatre, particularly in its reliance on text over imagery. It conjures up an idea of courtship that owes much to postwar Hollywood films. Even the slinky sequined number that the woman wears is not your average get-up for a twentysomething out on the town. But then is she all she appears? The man, a rather dull banker, thinks there is something of the angel about her.
There are almost certainly things going on here that are crystal clear to Imitating the Dog but less clear to an audience. I caught references to the fall from grace, a sense of being shut out of Eden, and of the advice to Orpheus not to look back. At a bare 40 minutes I suppose you could stand through it again in the hope of garnering more. But why should you? After all you don't expect to have to sit through Hamlet twice to find out what is going on.
· At Nuffield Theatre, Lancaster University (0800 028 3042) on Thursday and Friday, then tours to Manchester, Southampton, Salford, Wellingborough, Scarborough, Chester and Exeter.
