Theatre / Reviews
Review: Raymondo, Bristol Old Vic
Raymondo is the story of two boys, kept captive in their mother’s basement for six years, who finally escape into a surreal world of mothering café owners, bizarre shopkeepers and outré haute couture designers, carrying with them the magical Cape of OK that makes everything “alright”.
The tale, performed by Annie Siddons, has a dream-like quality, frequently without explanations or motivations and with strange yet logical jump cuts from one off-kilter setting to another. And yet, like a dream, it all makes perfect sense, soaking the audience in a progression of emotions fading in and out to Siddons’ frequently deadpan rhythmic narration.
In a fairly bare setting of a couple of scatter rugs and some standard lamps, this is pure storytelling, with Siddons acting out little of the story. She describes, she puts on voices, but there’s no attempt to visualise the action: that happens in the onlooker’s head, aided by a mesmeric live soundtrack by musician Tom Adams.
It is a woman talking, a man playing a guitar, and a roomful of people taken on a journey of the imagination into a modern fairytale: not the Disney kind, but a present-day Grimm universe, a world that blends magical realism with modern Gothic.
There are caveats, the biggest one being Siddons’ use of a microphone. The Old Vic Studio is a small space which any actor can fill with her unamplified voice – as Siddons does at one point – and the use of a microphone creates a barrier in the human interaction between teller and listener. The need to hang on to the mic (or stand behind the mic stand, which is even more distancing) also prevents Siddons from being more expressive in her performance.
Bristol has a rich culture of storytelling, fostered by the likes of Travelling Light and others, in which actions and mime are used to create a visual universe as well as a spoken one, and it is the one element that would have further enriched this production.
Yet the story is enrapturing, and Siddons’ delivery flawless. It may not be perfection, but the adventures of Raymondo and his brother Sparky are nonetheless a warm, chilling, exciting, engrossing way of spending an evening.
Raymondo continues at Bristol Old Vic until Saturday, October 3. For more info and to book tickets, visit www.bristololdvic.org.uk/raymondo.html