TAXI – The Old Woollen, Farsley

Writer: Andrea Heaton

Co-Directors: Rod Dixon and Douglas Thorpe

As a final production, after 17 years at Red Ladder, Rod Dixon could hardly have chosen a much more different play from his usual style. Plays like Mother CourageandThe Shed Crewhad a definite left wing bent and took place in various locations of a former industrial unit. At the same time small-scale productions were liable to show up in your local club or village hall.

For his farewell Red Ladder join forces with mad dogs dance theatre, with their Artistic Director Douglas Thorpe serving as Co-Director. The Old Woollen is certainly a former industrial unit, but it is configured into a more conventional theatre space: a long acting corridor between three rows of seats on each side. However, the main differences lie in the dream-like quality of Andrea Heaton’s text and the emphasis on physical theatre.

As the audience gathers in the bar, looking at watches and wondering what could have gone wrong as 8 o’clock draws near, a young man (John Kendall) leaps on the bar and begins haranguing the theatre-goers about life’s journey and his problems with concepts of God. Soon he leads the audience in and, with remarkable alacrity, the performance begins.

The set consists of a movie house sign (appropriately enough, forThe Wizard of OzandThe Invisible Man), various other signs for take-aways and Taxis and two remarkably mobile car seats, a single and a double. In the opening moments Taxi (John Rwothomack) is involved in a high-speed crash; he rises from that to deliver a wry monologue on a taxi driver’s life, then the mayhem begins.

To begin with members of the excellent Community Chorus come up with vignettes of typical back seat passengers. but soon Taxi (real name Joe, it turns out) breaks the rule of anonymity; he is no longer The Invisible Man, recognised most easily from the back. He becomes involved in his passengers’ lives, notably a derelict, Mal (Kendall again) and his controlling drug dealer (Gerard Headley).

Now conversations are punctuated by gyrations, entries to the back seat come via leaps and tumbles, and a growing air of menace is conveyed by dim light penetrating the surrounding blackness and by the looming figures of the Chorus. There is ultimately a resolution, but no spoilers here!

John Rwothomack is outstanding, both as a friendly interlocutor and an agonised participant, and he is well supported by Headley, Kendall, Stefania Pinato and Rose Ellen Lewis.

There is no doubt as to the visceral appeal of the drama, butTAXIseems uncertain at times of just what it wants to achieve – apart from the undeniably spectacular physical theatre.

Runs until 20th August 2023