THEATRES across the UK are being transformed into unorthodox runways as a unique show that has been described as “Susan Sontag meets America’s Next Top Model” restarts a tour cut short in 2020 due to Covid.
Fault Lines opened in February 2020 at Manipulate Festival in Edinburgh, but its tour was cut short when the UK went into lockdown the following month. The show was created by the theatre company Two Destination Language, led by Alister Lownie and Katherina Radeva who are known for encouraging intercultural dialogues through their art.
“We opened Fault Lines in the beginning of February 2020 at Manipulate Festival. We did a small tour of six venues in Scotland and it was cut short,” says Radeva. “Fault Lines is a really fun contemporary experience with five women talking about their experience of belonging and not belonging. It connects people in a very personal way as there is little fiction in the work.
“The show celebrates female stories, bodies and experiences. It takes the form of a catwalk and has five brilliant performers who perform different versions of female identity.”
The performance is described as a “historical, political, musical silent disco” as audience members are invited to use the Listen Everywhere app and headphones where they can move through six distinct channels which fit into the production at their own pace. The playlist includes guilty pleasures, a history of the domination of the English language, and personal narratives of otherness and belonging, while actors walk down the runway in different outfits.
“The really exciting thing is that you experience the show through an app that lets you change sound channels – there are six you can switch across,” Radeva explains. “You bring a smartphone and headphones and plug into our network. Every one of our audience members has a different experience.
“Often people talk about different things after the show – it’s a very collective experience but it’s interesting because people have come back to see it again. They could come back five times and see a different show each time.”
But are audiences happy to use their phones during a show with many rethinking screen time in a post-Covid world? “The audio app is so engaging that the audience are still watching a piece of work but through the phone,” Radeva explains.
“There is a moment in the show where people hug which feels so significant post-Covid as there’s another layered meaning to contact. In the last two years we have worked digitally and people have been using their phones more so, it’s become very useful as a digital device. We have spare devices if someone doesn’t bring one.
“It’s a bit like a silent disco but the performance is done for you. It’s a sound experience in that way but you sit down and watch a show and have the choice to listen to different tracks.”
The show examines the blurring cultural lines between how we look at and see each other, and equality and inequality.
Returning with new cast members that are diverse in background, colour and ability, audiences will meet performer and BSL interpreter Caroline Ryan; dancer Welly O’Brien; performer Rachel Glover; dancer and BSL performance maker Irina Vartopeanu; dancer and theatre maker Emma Jayne Park; and choreographer and member of the Meraki Collective Emilie Lahouel. All six try on a pantheon of personas through changing costumes and physicalities, as they show the audience the many versions of who they are.
Radeva concludes: “It’s a very thought-provoking work. People want to go out and have a very different experience to the news. It’s great fun and great escapism.”
Fault Lines is at Perth Theatre on Thursday and Melrose Corn Exchange on Saturday. For more information visit www.twodestinationlanguage.com/on-stage/fault-lines
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