Artists 4 Artists’ Double Bill 2019
Trailers exist to attract interest, create anticipation, and form expectations. For Artist 4 Artists' double bill, the trailers of Sean by Chris Reyes and Man Up by Kloé Dean create a near hyperawareness of the heavy and emotionally loaded themes at play.
The first images show Chris as the protagonist, placing a woman's hand on his face and grimacing under her palm, set to a sombre piano and violin score; while Kloé's trailer shows her rocking in a state of shock whilst cradling ropes in her arms, similarly set to a melancholic piano score.
I saw pain and I saw hurt. Hearing whispers of similar thoughts around me in the audience at Laban Theatre all but confirmed that palpable anxiety on the lead up to the performances. And I suspect Artist 4 Artists' orchestrated this environment mainly by the curation of the night.
Christopher Reyes as Sean and Jonadette Carpio as Rosemary in ‘Sean’ by Christopher Reyes. Photo: Camilla Greenwell
Chris opens the double bill with his work Sean, an autobiographical exploration of the relationship between a British-born Filipino, Sean (played by Chris Reyes) and his immigrant mother, Rosemary (played by Jonadette Carpio); looking closely at identity and cultural differences. Standing alone on stage, Sean simply welcomes us cheerfully and asks how we are in rounds of call-and-response. Interacting with the audience to immerse is Chris' forte (much like his previous work Caravan where the character Sean first appeared). The simple act of talking to us disperses the anxious air, readying us for his story from a state of comfort rather than of heightened tension.
Sean then tells us that the British thing to do is to struggle to say hello to strangers and reply out of courtesy – "nowadays when we say hi, no one means it". But not his mother. She has the ability to greet every and anyone indiscriminately. Although this isn't necessarily an exclusive Filipino characteristic, it is a part of her culture to do so, as Sean describes.
He is very aware of the positive impact of a genuine hello, and adores his mother for it, but maybe he is also aware of his partaking in the British form – "when we say hi, no one means it" he says. His Britishness in this sense is denying him the ability to fully and wholeheartedly greet and connect with others. The way his mother does. And perhaps the way he feels he should.
Jonadette Carpio as Rosemary in ‘Sean’ by Christopher Reyes. Photo: Camilla Greenwell
This idolisation of his mother's trait (cultural in his eyes) speaks of a disconnection. And when the child of an immigrant is faced with a seemingly cultural ideal shown by their parent, it's typical to dig into the past to find ways to connect to that ideal. So too Sean dives down into his and his mother's past.
The curtains draw to show Rosemary kneeling centre stage, wrapped from the waist down in a long yellowy-orange mesh that stretches down and then up into the corner of down stage right. I saw a butterfly coming out of a cocoon. I saw a rare and delicate bird. I remembered my own childhood, unravelling the yellow sweep wrapper of Carambar (a French caramel sweet).
I was taken in by the joy in Sean's voice recounting childhood memories of his mother telling stories of Filipino folklore. And coupled with Rosemary's embodiment of that warmth, it all felt like a fairytale. This imagery and metaphor reflects the romanticisation of a motherland many culturally displaced or second generation born people show. But that romanticisation is inevitably faced with a harsh reality. And in Sean's case, as his memories of his childhood continue to play out, the veil loses its sheen (Sean crawls under the mesh as shadows hinting at his parents arguing hit the back of the stage), the fairytale ends, and memories of a deep trauma take centre stage.
Christopher Reyes as Sean and Jonadette Carpio as Rosemary in ‘Sean’ by Christopher Reyes. Photo: Camilla Greenwell
How do we relate to our parents? How do we relate to our culture? These memories centre around Sean as an adolescent. In one scene, he recounts saving up money to buy her gifts of fish to her discontent; and in another scene, he eagerly tells his mother of a B grade after an exam but is met with disapproval for not reaching higher. “What’s the highest grade, Sean?!” Rosemary sharply asks before lecturing further. Jonadette plays her with gravitas and clarity. Behind her unhappiness lies the weight of supporting her son and household on a cleaner's wage.
A poignant moment sees her in a vulnerable light – far from the fairytale character but softer than her stern maternal identity. Alone at the edge of the stage, Rosemary meekly murmurs towards the audience “Hello, I’m Rosemary. I’m here to clean your home". The lighting isolates her small frame and paints the hellos and smiles Sean admired in a new light – no longer methods for genuine connection, but her coping mechanism in a harsh UK.
The scenes effectively convey Sean and Rosemary's damaging relationship, but also comment on connection. In his childhood, it was Sean, who despite falling short of his mother's expectations, was always eager to connect with her or find a common ground. Whether it was saving his pocket money to buy her gifts or studying not for himself but to make her happy.
Christopher Reyes as Sean in ‘Sean’. Photo: Camilla Greenwell
Yet in his adult form, Sean only remembers his mother's ability to connect with others and finds himself at fault for never meeting this ideal. Perhaps this selective memory is the consequence of his childhood trauma – still shackled to idealisms and a rooted yearning to make her happy.
But the version of Sean we are introduced to in the opening isn't one shackled by his trauma or to the distorted coping mechanism of alcohol. It's a version speaking of establishing genuine connections with others but most importantly with himself (he congratulates himself for being 5 years sober).
Psychological research on trauma talks on the difficulty of overcoming trauma "especially when and if parent figures, authorities and caregivers are the perpetrators and/or fail to recognize what has happened and help the child process and metabolize the stressors". To arrive to this positive present, a reckoning must have taken place.
Sean ends with 15 minutes of visceral dance, set to Orin Norbert’s expressive and emotive score. Sean and Rosemary fall into each other, at times delicately and at times violently. The strict mother, the vulnerable cleaner, and the resilient migrant appear one after another in Rosemary's physicalisation.
The innocent son, the frightened child, and the suffering adult meet her with equal weight. Their gestures alternating between sorrowful caresses and charged weapons of accusation. All laid bare. Not every moment of catharsis and reconciliation need be yogic and peaceful.
I believe there are two strands of works present in Sean. Those who had seen Chris' previous work Caravan at Redbridge Drama Centre in 2017 and at The Vaults in 2018 would be familiar with the alcoholic Sean. This strand can be seen as Sean's redemption and a deeper look at his reasons for turning to alcohol.
The other strand is Chris' autobiography, examining generational cultures and family history. Trauma and its consequences are where the strands intertwine – in my eyes, it's Chris' childhood trauma that leads to Sean's alcoholism.
The autobiographical label of this work could disprove this in an instant. But I'm left agreeing with Ian Abbotts' review for Writing About Dance: "we are left unsure… How removed is Sean from [Chris] Reyes’ own experience? How much is autobiographical and how much is fiction?" A reconciliation of these uncertainties needs to happen but don't take away from the bigger picture. Sean is a great piece of theatre of pain, of hope, and of overcoming.
I remember seeing smiles as we filtered out of the auditorium during the interval. Having walked in 35 minutes earlier with anxious tension, leaving the space feeling weightless was refreshing. Yet as we returned to witness Kloé Dean's Man Up, I felt that anxiety slowly return.
Kloe Dean in her solo ‘Man Up’. Photo: Camilla Greenwell
Man Up is an autobiographical story, with a comedic twist, telling the profound and surreal circumstances surrounding her father’s suicide. On the edge of stage is a large pile of crystal blue rope, with a near mesmerising gleam under the stage's lighting. Left with 10 minutes of solely this imagery, thoughts flooded. Rope has such a powerful symbolism and anxieties and fears are the first things to occupy the mind when we hear or think about suicide.
I recalled the trailer and Kloé's traumatic rocking; I thought of the act of suicide and its link to the hangman's noose; I thought further about the hangman's noose and its socio-political and historical contexts of oppression, trauma, and death. (No wonder an anxious mind is often represented as messy, coiling lines with no clear beginning or end).
But as she emerges from the depths of the rope (to loud gasps and awe of her stillness), I felt a sudden quietness in this onslaught of thoughts. As if I was made to come up from the depths as she did from the rope. Held down by the burden and the loss it represents. I felt akin to her in that sense.
Where Sean is a delving into memories of past trauma from a place of newfound stability and positivity, Man Up is a coming out of a presently lived trauma. Unlike Sean who has forged a path forward, Kloé is still peeling away at the trauma of her father's passing; brilliantly physicalised by her still twisting in and out of the rope despite coming to stand. To us it looks simple enough to brush off the last pieces of rope, yet to her the attachment and weight is still too much to untangle.
Hannah Hutchings-Georgiou puts it eloquently in her review for Lucy Writers: "But part of her doesn’t want to be free, part of her wants to remain submerged… How do you free yourself from the ties of pain holding you down when those self-same ties bind you to a loved one?" These ties of pain are perhaps her still wrestling with the hows and whys of her loss. And instead of brushing the ties away she decides to unravel the whole pile of rope.
Instead of the flight response of stepping away from the traumatic experience, Kloé bravely chooses to fight and wade through the trauma to reach a point of healing. What this entails is an unravelling of the rope into one line, zigzagging across the stage; resembling a timeline of events and poignantly, a heart rate line on an electrocardiogram.
"Every day 12 men die in the UK from committing suicide. Who and what do they leave behind?"
Much like Sean opens with scenes establishing the mother-son relationship, Man Up too puts into context Kloé's father-daughter bond. She traces the timeline in an attempt to come to terms with her loss. Heaving up the rope and at times delicately caressing, her Hip Hop grooves, funk wrist rolls and waacking contortions open up a line of questioning.
"It really messes with my mind / How nylon kisses on your neck / Can sound so kind…" she says as the rope at one point chillingly brushes her radio mic as she traces her neck. At another moment, she rhymes "I was a Daddy’s girl / Through and Through / Anything you did / I wanted to do too".
Deeply personal and private memories are told in rapid succession. She recounts receiving an out-of-the-blue phone call from her father during a dance class, her uncharacteristically calling in sick and staying at home, and a random visit from an estranged aunt who tells her the heart-breaking news.
Who and what's left behind is a woman, still daddy's girl, with her world distorted. Visually, she's boxed into a small pool of light, with her own shadow looming over her; once again reliving that shock and trauma.
What stood out to me was Kloé's ability to recall and go through these tough moments. I've written before that there exists a distressing trend whenever trauma is placed on stage; one of complete submersion and of re-experience of that trauma at the detriment of the artists. Yet what keeps Kloé away from that (aside from what I'd assume to have been a holistic creative process) are two things I've isolated.
Kloe Dean in her solo ‘Man Up’. Photo: Camilla Greenwell
First is humour. Dave Chappelle, in his recent Sticks & Stones stand up, talks about how comedy allows us to talk about the taboo; to explore sensitive topics we otherwise wouldn't, and find a release through laughter. And comedy lends itself well to Kloé's story, offering an emotional padding to an otherwise heart-wrenching account. We're treated to culturally relevant jokes of what happens in a hip hop class ("If I see you on your phone one more time…" Kloé lightly threatens; and to paraphrase "we're not gonna win the competition with you looking like that" she says at another point). And this is all amidst the scene of potentially the last time she spoke to her dad.
Another poignant scene is of one where she attempts to pick up the broken piece after hearing the news. She's sat in a bank, playing both the clerc and herself as she struggles to close her dad's account. Continuously told the only way to do so would be to have the owner present, we're forced to laugh at a ridiculous and shocking moment (I heard 'seriously?!' said many times around me). But without that laughter, we're left with the reality of an emotionally detached customer service system further aggravating a recent wound of losing a lost one.
Second is another presence on stage. Composer Teresa Origone is omnipresent on stage (down stage left) almost embodying the role of a therapist. With incredible keys, synth sounds and beats, Teresa offers companionship through light tones in moments of nostalgic reminiscence, and darker tones in moments of sombre thoughts.
She makes the stage seem not so frighteningly big and makes Kloé seem not alone and isolated in her thoughts (Kloé at moments of monologue would tellingly glance into the corner as if speaking to a friend and extending that to us in the audience). Instead, she's always there – sonically and physically – to support when needed. And likewise, Kloé homes in on that support and extends it to all those feeling like they should 'man up'. Because of this, Man Up seems less theatrical and more conversational. More real.
It takes an incredible amount of skill – on the part of both Chris and Kloé (and their incredible creative teams) – to emotionally position themselves to tell deeply personal accounts of loss and to also position us, with care, into following their stories. I've experienced works of trauma and left the theatre with cumbersome emotions far too many times.
What Sean and Man Up offer instead is that although trauma can be devastating, recovery is possible. And most importantly, that newfound hope, strength, and resilience lie in the healing process.
