PERHAPS the best compliment that can be paid to this joint production (Romania's Compania Teatrala 777 and Glasgow's Sounds of Progress) of Mark Medoff's award-winning play about the emotional and psychological effects of disability is that it never draws attention to the many levels on which it operates.
This is straightforward narrative theatre that raises profound questions about both the way disabled people are treated and the way they see themselves, set to an understated but haunting soundtrack. It is not Othello but it speaks eloquently of sexual and other jealousies.
This production is not flawless. It pulls its punches at the denouement to a degree that is not fatal but still severely damaging - and in keeping faith with their usual musical venue (although they cannot be spoiled for choice in Glasgow at present) SoP have done no favours to what is essentially a proscenium-arch theatre show.
But it does no harm to remember that this unique collaboration brings together a differently-abled musical ensemble and a company working in what is not their mother tongue that boasts a comprehensive ability in sign language as well. It does not take the presence of signers-for-the-deaf Yvonne Strain and Robbie Grieve at the side of the stage to point up the layers of complexity that have been dissolved by director Theodor-Christian Popescu, composer and MD Gordon Dougall, and their companies, although that probably helps.
That the Romanian troupe add to their trilingualism a typically East European physical vocabulary is another asset, with Cristina Toma's Sarah significantly the most captivating presence. That the combined company overcome an environment that is best suited to the site-specific is a considerable achievement.
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