Lloyd Newson: DV8 Physical Theatre

Three Dance Works by choreographer Lloyd Newson – first release on Blu-ray Disc: Dead Dreams of Monochrome Men, Strange Fish and Enter Achilles.

Dead Dreams of Monochrome Men begins with lascivious glances in a gay bar and ends with a brief glimpse from behind closed curtains onto the empty, sunlit street outside. Strange Fish opens with a semi-naked woman hanging Christ-like from a cross, singing. The piece ends with a similar scene, in which the woman lies crumpled on her stomach on the hard, dusty ground – shaken down from the cross by the protagonist (Wendy Houston), who having searched for a man to love is instead visited by nightmarish, biblical plagues. Enter Achilles is set in a pub, a place where men meet to drink, sing karaoke and carry out their male rituals, and ends the following morning with a view of the club from the outside.

Lloyd Newson’s psychodramas unfold in enclosed spaces such as these. In Dead Dreams of Monochrome Men a bare and unfurnished set, structured using light and shade, a wall, an opening, a bathtub; the hotel in Strange Fish – empty, dusty and abandoned; or the old-world comfort and traditional authenticity of the pub in Enter Achilles. The characters that occupy these spaces react savagely, longing desperately for human company, tenderness and recognition. (109253 / 109254)