Verdict four stars
Tron Theatre, Glasgow
The five performers sat in a row across the front of the stage as the audience put on their headphones may be still as they begin Kai Fischer's dramatic exploration of assorted twilight zones, but everything they say and do over the next hour suggests lives in constant motion. With a big screen behind them projecting swirls of far off planets and torrents of ocean, the quintet juxtapose the stories of Yuri Gagarin, the Russian cosmonaut who in 1961 became the first man in space, and a group of nameless refugees on the run from Africa to a world full of western promise.
It begins informally enough, with guitarist Tyler Collins and percussionist Gameli Tordzro tapping out infectious global rhythms while performers Ryan Gerald, Mercy Ojelade and Adura Onashile test out microphones that will link them directly with the audience's own wavelength.
Within seconds, however, we hear the crackle of pre-launch dialogue between Gagarin and a Ground Control occupied by Sergei Korolev, a man with a similar dream of space travel. We hear too the first-hand accounts of equally perilous voyages as refugees paddle their desperate way across the sea in a yellow toy dinghy.
Pulsed by Matt Padden's sound design, out of this emerges a Fourth World sensurround collage, which off-sets the oddly similar sounds of rocket launchers and waves crashing to startlingly evocative effect.
Produced by Fischer in association with the Tron and the National Theatre of Scotland, the result is a vital snapshot of universal displacement, in which both Gagarin and the refugees are left hanging, without a planet or land of any kind to call home.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article