Devisers: Halfpence Theatre Company
Director: Megan Brewer
When it comes to Britain’s immigration policy, both the government and the mainstream media want to focus on demonising the most desperate, on “stopping the small boats” or whatever trite phrase will ignite their base. Often overlooked is how we treat those who enter Britain in what those same forces would deem the “right” way and how, even then, we put barriers up where there should be none.
Migrant-led theatre company Halfpace’s devised work Transit looks at life for three such people who have come to Britain. A series of scenes, with no straightforward narrative line other than a common thread of displacement, are played out on a part-traverse staging that sometimes acts as a catwalk, sometimes as a physical distance between actors and the videos that play on the Space’s main stage.
That physical distance mirrors the virtual one in several mocked-up video calls. There is an emphasis on detachment from one’s family at several points. An attempt at a group singalong of “Happy Birthday” results in each video participant falling out of sync; elsewhere, Mikko Juan has a difficult call with his sister when a delayed Home Office decision means he can’t leave the country to attend her wedding.
Scenes such as those, with literal meanings, are rare; Transit leans more heavily into impressionistic and allegorical. Sometimes, their meaning is on the surface, such as when an ever-increasing pile of paperwork subsumes one performer, accompanied by arcade game video and music; this is a game where the complexity is designed to overcome you eventually. Similarly, a scene where two actors – one male, one female – undertake a battle of wits (who can hold a note for the longest, whose body is the most gymnastic) amuses, it also underlines that even though the actors may be seen for different roles, an intrinsic bias exists when production companies feel they only need to hire one non-white and/or non-British face to fulfil their quota.
At other times, there is a more ambiguous sense to the performance. As three performers pack and unpack suitcases, throwing clothes away that are then caught by a castmate and repacked, the sense of never being settled, never quite having the time and space to make a home, is felt rather than spoken. Yet other scenes are so oblique as to be elusive, even as Megan Brewer’s direction and Monica Nicolaides’ movement direction make them ever interesting to watch.
Austin Yang’s delicate score, with its frequent nods to Claude Debussy, helps to bind the hour of scenes together. It serves as a useful reminder of what those coming to the UK have gone through and continue to do. The Home Office may want us to look only at the small boats, but Halfpace’s evocative work shows us how our migration policies are much broader than that. Only by remembering that, can we hope to pressure this and future governments to improve things for everyone.
Continues until 2 December 2023