COCKPIT, by the late Anglo-Irish writer Bridget Boland, is both an extraordinary historical document and a remarkably prescient drama. First staged (at the Playhouse Theatre, London) in 1948 it is set in a grand theatre in Germany which has been transformed into a post-Second World War transit centre for "DPs" (displaced persons) from across Europe.
Young, multilingual Captain Ridley of the British Army is tasked with sorting the multitudinous and diverse refugees into westbound and eastbound convoys. However, as no-nonsense Geordie Sergeant Barnes (who has been keeping order in the centre ahead of Ridley's arrival) has discovered, ethnic, national and political conflicts make this a complicated and dangerous task.
It is not difficult, in these days of the Catalan crisis, Brexit and the return of ideology (on both the Corbynite left and the xenophobic right), to see in the play a premonitory metaphor for Europe in 2017. Yet, if the recent war in Ukraine teaches us anything it is, surely, that we are still living in the divided Europe instituted by Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt at Yalta in 1945.
By setting the action in a requisitioned playhouse, the play cleverly puts the audience at the heart of events. Designer Ana Ines Jabares-Pita has put additional seating at the back of the stage, thereby enhancing the claustrophobia of the piece.
The splendid Lyceum auditorium itself is hung with drying laundry and (courtesy of superb musical director Aly Macrae) filled with the musics of Europe. One can feel the nervous energy of a broken continent on the move.
Director Wils Wilson and her talented, international cast build excellently on these atmospheric possibilities. Boland's intelligent conceit, in which the theatre is sealed for a time by a health emergency, magnifies the dramatic intensity.
There are fine performances all over the place, not least from Alexandra Mathie as a Polish professor of anatomy, who is as rusty in her medical practise as she is distrustful of Russians. Peter Hannah (the idealistic Ridley), Deka Walmsley (the deliciously blunt Barnes) and Dylan Read (the comically unctuous stage manager Bauer) also impress.
For all its dramatic sophistication, there is a degree of reductive, political over-simplification in the play. Ridley represents Boland's doctrine that "belief is dangerous", seemingly oblivious to the fact that his "anti-ideological" liberal humanism is also an ideology.
Unsurprisingly, the politicos among the refugees are often two-dimensional caricatures. A Yugoslav partisan, for example, shouts "Tito! Tito! Tito!", with clenched fist in the air, at the very mention of his leader's name.
Depicting a period of crisis-induced cooperation sandwiched between belief-inflamed conflicts, Boland's anxious and humane drama is a bold and brave exploration of the complexities of post-war Europe. However, it has beliefs of its own, and they are not without their own dubieties.
From the besmirched grandeur of an appropriated theatre to the (on Wednesday night) somewhat waterlogged splendour of a Scottish country mansion. The grounds of Drummohr House in East Lothian provide the location for Dragons Of Drummohr, the latest, dragon-inspired "augmented reality theatre adventure" from Edinburgh-based company Vision Mechanics.
With the "Dragon Matrix" app downloaded to your smartphone or tablet you are invited to join the Dragon Protection League (DPL) in their quest to find the various creatures that are inhabiting the grounds of the house. At the DPL's base camp a little museum exhibition tells us all about dragons and the evil poachers who threaten to eradicate them.
Then, out in the grounds, we explore a variety of splendidly constructed, interactive (and often delightfully eccentric) installations and sculptures. There's a place where we can assist the survival of dragons through dance, a garden of massive, multi-coloured flowers and, of course, an enormous, very friendly-looking red dragon.
Throughout the grounds there are codes to scan with the app, each of them bringing creatures, from scary spiders to despicable trolls, into your phone. Collect all of the animals and there are prizes to be won from the grateful DPL.
Needless to say, this is all great fun for media-savvy primary school kids. A good pair of wellies, a decent torch and the app on their phone are all that's needed for an engrossing and active 45 minutes of exploration.
The only slight disappointment is that Vision Mechanics' emphasis on computer technology means that the actual physical materials of the piece tend to be sculptures, rather than puppets. An actual moving dragon in the grounds of the house would have been a treat.
For details of Dragons Of Drummohr, visit: dragonmatrix.org.uk
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