Mnemonic review

Part mystery story, part profound exploration of memory, human migration and the intangible idea of identity, this elusive, utterly absorbing piece from avant-garde performance makers Complicité was first staged in 1999. This smartly reimagined version weaves contemporary tensions – technology-driven alienation, rising nationalism and the mass displacement of refugees -– around its two tangentially connected plot lines. In the present day, a woman searches Europe for her estranged father; in 1991, the 5,000-year-old body of Ötzi the iceman is discovered in an Alpine glacier.

Company co-founder Simon McBurney returns to direct and gives the sprawling piece an elegant, unhurried staging in the National Theatre’s Olivier. Sequences blend fluidly together, with echoing dialogue and recurring gestures carrying through from one scene to the next, creating an aural and visual collage of overlapping content. Understated yet precise physical work offers striking imagery, while plenty of humour keeps the energy up during passages in which seemingly disconnected ideas are methodically developed. Gradually, all the threads will cohere – though not entirely neatly.

Michael Levine’s slick set is often left strikingly bare, allowing the ensemble plenty of room to sweep about the space. Significant props and items of furniture rush on at high speed – a bed, a two-way mirror and vast curtains of rippling, semi-opaque plastic suddenly materialise in the space when required, adding to the production’s dreamlike feel.

Continues...