Creators: Elmira Oberholzer, John Harper, Emma Wagstaff, and Dominic Weatherby.
Directors: Emma Wagstaff and Dominic Weatherby.
The show blurb for the collaboratively devised slice of verse, dance, back projections, and physical theatre, The Writing of Stones, describes the piece as, amongst other things, “a psychedelic school trip”. It is as good a description as any other, though it does not really capture the entirety of what is on offer. Anticipate a kind of immaculately choreographed ensemble TED talk, partially narrated in projected surtitles by talking stones, refracted in a surrealist mirror and consumed under the influence of some strong narcotics.
“We begin at the beginning of you and the end of us”, one of the four performers tells us early on. Each one is bedecked in a hoodie bearing a more or less accurate quote from Keats’ Ode on a Grecian Urn. The poem is, at one level, about how we perceive, interpret, and experience art, which, very broadly speaking, is what this show is about.
Early in the piece, we get a brief lecturette, accompanied by dance, making the point that art relies on human perception and thought to bring dormancy to life. Then we get a four-minute section where we must put on eye masks and take ourselves back to childhood, presumably to make the point that it is always our imagination doing the heavy lifting.
Subsequently, we get a beautiful section in which the performers devise friezes that reenact major works of art, from prehistoric wall paintings to Greek temple adornments, through Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam to Munch’s The Scream. You will have to be on your toes to recognise the referenced art, which cues some verse musing on deconstructing artistic form and composition. Is that Joe Rosenthal’s iconic photo Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima in the mix? It certainly looks like it.
Towards the end, we get a kind of Rorschach test in which stones, or it could be people, discuss what they see in a photo, making the point that perception relies less on the what and more on the how. Perhaps this piece should not work, but it does, thanks to fantastic music, evocative words and imagery, and wonderfully creative movement direction. See it.
Runs until 5 August 2026.
Camden Fringe runs until 30 August 2026
