Tonight:
5°c
Fiona Mountford's rating
Overwrought atmosphere for Knives in Hens
By
Fiona Mountford
8 Feb 2010
On the evidence of this frustratingly portentous production, it’s hard to see why David Harrower’s Knives in Hens (1995) has become a modern classic, translated into more than 20 languages.
It’s certainly an arresting fable with a dreamlike quality but having a cellist play doomy music almost non-stop over the stripped-down dialogue means more overwrought atmosphere than any 75-minute three-hander in a small space could hope to process.
The setting is some imaginary pre-industrial society, God-fearing, superstitious and suspicious of anything other than manual labour. Here a miller, a ploughman and his wife, known only as “Woman”, contrive themselves into a love triangle, although it was hard to comprehend, at the preview performance I attended, quite what everyone was getting so het up about.
Director Serdar Bilis doesn’t give his staging the clarity this piece so desperately requires, which means it’s more a case of Knives in Selves than anything.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
