The past few months have seen an unusually large number of theatrical dispatches from Wales. The message they have sent has largely been bleak, depicting a country and a people suffering from confusion, depression and indifference.
The agony continues with this latest production from Volcano, a long-established physical theatre company with many admirers and imitators. Volcano has been a treasure because of its ability to physicalise not just feelings but also thought, and use text - from Shakespeare and Ibsen and Tony Harrison to Marx and Baudrillard - with rare intelligence. Its work has never just been about bodies slamming against walls.
But something has gone badly wrong with this state-of-the-nation piece that instead of opening out debates about regionalism, nationalism, self-determination and national identity and culture actually shuts them down. Set during a conference on arts, culture and the state, it feels suspiciously like the company's argument with itself. It is exclusive rather than inclusive, incestuous rather than accessible. After a while it makes you yawn and long to go for a walk on Clapham Common.
Ron Davies is just one reference point: Julie Christie, Rudolf Hess, Edward II and Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin (the piece apparently takes place in the hull of a ship) are others in an evening that feels increasingly pretentious, and for all its talk of revolution is astoundingly decadent. The target here is not capitalism, or exploitation, but Arts Council bureaucrats, smug academics and agenda-wavers.
A lack of theatricality is a major problem and if the 90 minutes finally achieves some momentum in its murderous If-style fantasy sequences, by then the production has become so obscure that you wonder whether it might be intentionally parodying itself. And if it were, would it know?
Until June 11. Box office: 020-7223 2223. ***** Unmissable **** Recommended *** Enjoyable ** Mediocre * Terrible
