Last Updated on November 29, 2023
A Thought-Provoking Double Bill at Sadler’s Wells
Death Trap is the title of a thought-provoking double bill, recently shown at Sadler’s Wells, of the dance works Cerberus and Goat, created and directed by the choreographer Ben Duke for the dancers of the Rambert. Cerberus was premiered in May 2022 and Goat in October 2017, which was nominated for an Olivier award in the Best New Dance Production category in 2018. These works explore the human condition; birth and death, the struggles of life, profound loss and bereavement, depression, and in particular for Goat they explore sin, guilt and hope of atonement. Cerberus and Goat both use metatheatrical devices which bring welcome humour to stories that contain a lot of sadness.
Ben Duke is the Director of the dance-theatre company Lost Dog, and creates works that are a mixture of theatre, dance and comedy. A trained actor, contemporary dancer and holder of a first-class English Literature degree, he likes to create works that tell stories and have a literature base, including Paradise Lost and Romeo and Juliet (2016) and Ruination (2022), based on the myth of Medea. Cerberus itself is a contemporary dance adaptation of the story of Orpheus and Eurydice, one of the most famous love stories in Greek mythology.
Cerberus begins with the voice of Naya (Lovell), an Eurydice figure, explaining that her dance upon entrance to exit across the stage is her life, and that death literally awaits her in the wings stage left. She drags a rope across with her, suggestive of some kind of life force, as she vividly dances out her life and at last, with the rope pulled taut, she disappears stage left to the Underworld. Musa (Motha) enters as the Orpheus figure, who is caught off-guard by the apparent literalisation of meta-dramaturgical staging: the stage left, he realises, is consuming the dancers, and his character shifts from playful fourth-wall breaker to tragic hero. The piece gives way to a chaos of expressive bodies, movingly personal emotions displayed by each dancer, as they approach stage left, giving way to both torment and hilarity: Motha begs the drummer on stage to stop drumming because it seems to be urging people onto their deaths, and it is debated whether Naya is dead or in the dressing room.
In a particularly electrifying scene, a group of dancers cross the stage acting out their own difficult lives with arresting movements, sluggish or reaching to the sky or crawling on the floor, some just pulling away from death at the last moment and others embracing it, but at last they all slow down and enter the Underworld together. In one moving episode, a man is carried by his friends to the other side, and in another, lovers duet onwards towards death. The ending aligns with myth yet remains enigmatic. When Orpheus is in Hades, having apparently soothed Cerberus to sleep; a group of dancers are all attached to one rope and are moving to stage left, whereas Orpheus has his own rope which is pulled taut, pulling Eurydice out, but at the last moment, of course, he looks back. The rope falls down and Eurydice is drawn back into the shadows. What is strange is that the title character of Cerberus, the many-headed hound of Hades, is never seen. Perhaps just imagined in the shadows of the wings, the hound of the Underworld remains invisible and untold in the re-told legend, prompting the audience to re-interpret Cerberus: could the hound be the sinister power in the music, or the dancers tied together like slaves on one line of rope, a ‘many-headed’ presence, and, if not, what does his absence achieve?
The music is excellent, from the drummer (Romarna Campbell); a folk song sung in the performer’s own language; atmospheric tracks A New Error and Built Then Burnt use shimmering synths reminiscent of interstellar mystery, and the sublime Lamento della Ninfa by Monteverdi, sung by Caroline Jaya-Ratnam and accompanied on the guitar by Dave Manington, was beautifully yearning. Eleanor Bull was the Costume Designer and the funeral couture in particular was very successful; black velvets, furs, delicate fascinators, lace veils and sleek black suits.
Goat, the second work, is in equal parts hilarious and unsettling, set in a remote village hall where a sacrificial ritual takes place. A human will be offered (amusingly because of animal rights protests); an interesting examination of the conventions of tragic ritual follows. There is something of a Greek chorus of dancers and musicians, a bass player and drums on a raised stage and a pianist and singer playing only the music of Nina Simone, life-affirming songs of self-belief and struggle. Goat begins with a TV reporter doing a live broadcast in the hall with the assistance of his cameraman. He constantly asks the dancers banal questions for his 24-hour news channel, a large television on stage broadcasting live from Antonello’s camera as he videos the ritual, a stylish touch which introduces a questioning of the unreflective media and the intentionality of recording tragedy. Tom Rogers provided the costume design with a cohesive colour palette suggestive of the 1950s, and Jackie Shemesh the lighting.
Sheree Dubois’ performance elevated the production by making elegant and soulful an otherwise disturbed atmosphere created by the barbarity of human sacrifice, the convulsions of a cult-member possessed by fate, the victim made to don a goat mask, stripped, hounded and alienated, and the descent into drunkenness of a tortured, sinister cult-leader played captivatingly by Simone Damberg-Würtz. Conor Kerrigan as the sacrificial victim delivers a strong, disturbingly passionate dance, meant to be his last, as he commits to the ritual’s conclusion: he must dance himself to death, though I was hoping this could continue for more than one song to make his fatal exhaustion more plausible by the end.
In Leviticus, a goat that escaped into the wilderness covered with the blood of the people, and another ritually killed, was believed to be an atonement for the sins of the community; the scapegoat and the sacrifice. Leaving the blood, or sins, of the community on one body relieves the others, and the body as the site of transferred sin was well explored: the cult expressively tangled together, connected by limbs, necks, legs, in one ecstatic ‘body’, one by one coming to the front with a fleeting solo, finally to separate, one singled out by fate to dance for them all.
The final dance is a surprise, as one assumes the victim is dead, but his grief-stricken lover (Seren Williams) pulls him to her lap and he bursts into life; together they leap and run and kiss across the stage, and the thoughtful choice not to have the cameraman film them implies either this is a dream conjured in the lover’s heartbreak, or that the reporter and Antonello have discovered a reverence for the scene, letting it play out with the intimacy it deserves. The surprise coup de théâtre of the final moment ends the play with questions but assuredly contains hope, alongside the revelation of empathetic action, with the memory of Simone’s song Feelings, still echoing.
Death Trap will be on tour until April 25th 2024 – the remaining dates are listed below. Death Trap is a co-production with Theatre de la Ville, Paris, and Rambert will perform there from 14-20 February 2024.
Theatre de la Ville
14 – 20 February, 8:00pm
Matinee on Saturday 17 February, 3:00pm
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Mayflower Theatre, Southampton
6 – 7 March 2024, 7.30pm
Audio Described/BSL Interpreted performance – Thu 7 Mar at 7.30pm
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His Majesty’s Theatre, Aberdeen
26 – 27 March 2024, 7.30pm
Audio Described/BSL Interpreted performance – Wed 27 Mar, 7.30pm
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Wales Millennium Centre
8 – 9 April 2024, 7.30pm
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The Lowry, Salford
18 – 20 April 2024
Audio Described/BSL Interpreted performance – Sat 20 Apr at 7.30pm
Touch tour – Sat 20 Apr at 6.30pm
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Newcastle Theatre Royal
24 – 25 April
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