Writer and Director: Nikki Rummer
Nikki Rummer’s theatrical movement piece Unbroken is a complex tale in which multiple instances of family trauma surface during a Christmas gathering. Part of the London International Mime Festival 2022 staged at The Place, Rummer combines a very personal history and experience with a physicality derived primarily from her gymnastic background to create a unique and sometimes harrowing piece about family heritage and betrayal.
As the Rummer family gather in Seattle for Christmas in 2001, Nikki introduces the audience to her parents, sister, maternal and paternal grandparents before realising that it didn’t quite happen like that. Spooling back to examine the circumstances in which these various couples met decades before as well as the call three weeks earlier that drew her home from London, a terrible secret is shared.
The show comes with a trigger warning for content involving sexual abuse and domestic violence and so much of Unbroken feels like Rummer’s unfinished 20-year attempt to process and make sense of the things that happened in her family and the circumstances in which she found out at an already difficult family Christmas. And despite its initial set-up, the tone of wistful melancholy in the first minutes of this piece make it clear that this is no homespun yarn about the joys of family.
It is in fact two slightly different things; one a tribute to Rummer’s father Dave whose kindness and decency quietly fill the room evoked through Rummer’s evident grief and respect for him. But when an earlier trauma is revealed, the second half of Unbroken starts to explore what it means to be related to someone who committed deeply immoral acts, whose name clearly fills the performer with sadness and revulsion. Yet, this part of the show is quite naturally the hardest for Rummer to articulate either in words or through the emotion-laden acrobatic performances, unsure what it is she feels and really wants to say.
Unbroken also draws unusual equivalence with the events of Jesus’ betrayal, and while the Rummer-family Christmas lunch and Last Supper have obvious parallels, the later focus on Judas’ kiss and whether that betrayal was worse than her family trauma seem rather tenuous. Rummer finds some very nice comedy in posing as and acting out the role of the disciples as depicted by Leonardo da Vinci, which is very entertaining, but the two parts of the show don’t really gel.
Rummer is, however, a warm and open performer, instantly bringing the audience into her family to create a sustained rapport. The casual start and openness about the shock and experience of discovering her family’s history is affecting and Rummer balances this with the nostalgic romance of describing the various love stories that shaped who she is. Gymnastically too, the strength in Rummer’s arms is extraordinary, able to hold handstands, headstands and tucks for an inordinately long time, all of which are performed with feeling.
The different trains of thought within Unbroken do need to come together more coherently to help the audience find their way through this show but it is certainly not easy to openly confront the experiences Rummer includes in her performance. The decision to do that alone through a combination of narrative, dance and acrobatic expression is both challenging and interesting.
Runs until 6 April 2022
