Earthfall - At Swim Two Boys @ The Lowry

[Jan McNulty]

I made a day of it last Wednesday and saw At Swim Two Boys in the evening (after Matthew Bourne's Nutcracker in the afternoon).

 

This work is about the growing relationship of two boys at the time of the Easter Uprising of 1916 and the trench warfare of WW1. The boys enjoy swimming and the set has a lot of water. The back of the set looks like the outside of a corrugated container and has water trickling down constantly. The water lands in a shallow pool that comprises the performance area. The dancers get very wet.

 

The performance lasts minutes over an hour and it is a very intense and moving hour. You see the boys being by turns playful, physical and lyrical as they are, perhaps, falling in love. The commisioned score has slow moving lyrical sections as the boys are being reflective and faster, more aggressive sections as they play vigourously in the water.

 

Occasionally film of WW1 is projected onto the back of the stage.

 

As the evening reaches its climax, events take a tragic turn that I was not expecting at all.

 

This is an intense, moving and thought-provoking production.