Sobana Jeyasingh - Clorinda Agonistes - The Lowry - October 2022

[Jan McNulty]

After a horrendous journey to The Lowry last night (thanks to Man U playing at home and supporters clogging up the last 2 miles and nearly filling The Lowry car park!) I made it into the auditorium with 2 minutes to spare!!

 

I quickly checked the information sheet I had been given and was absolutely thrilled to see Jonathan Goddard listed as Tancredi!

 

Although there was no interval the work was described as being in 2 Acts.  Act 1 was based on Monteverdi's Il Combattimento set in the first crusade and about a Christian knight's duel with a Saracen fighter.  The knight, Tancredi, does not realise that the Saracen he is duelling with is Clorinda with whom he has fallen in love from afar.  The tenor, acting as narrator, also took some part in the action.

 

This act of the work was absolutely enthralling.  As ever Jonathan Goddard was magnificent with his enormous stage presence and beautiful dancing.  Jemima Brown was his perfect foil.  Possibly indicating the 2 sides of the battle the dance styles of the two were slightly different and that made it even better.  Ed Lyon, the tenor acting as Testo the narrator was superb too.

 

When Clorinda has been vanquished 3 more dancers appear, perhaps family mourning her.  This scene transmogrifies into Act 2 which seems to be set in the modern day, perhaps in war-torn Syria.  We realise this from fragments of film showing bombed out buildings.  I'm afraid that apart from the last few minutes this whole section was meaningless to me.  Were the 4 women victims or aggressors or did we even actually care?  There was a lot of rolling around on the floor.  Then they stood up and Jonathan Goddard and Ed Lyon appeared again as a cameraman and sound operator, mostly just standing or moving slightly to follow the "action".  There was some recognisable dancing for the last couple of minutes as the 4 women rushed around the stage perhaps looking for lost loved ones.

 

I absolutely loved act 1 but I wish (short though the evening would have been) it had ended there.  I think Shobana Jeyasingh has had an excellent idea of showing how the land has been battled over for centuries and there has been no lasting peace.  Sadly the execution of the modern day just did not work for me.