Rambert ‘Death Trap’ Hall for Cornwall , March 2024
Years ago I did a painting, ‘an afternoon at the ballet Rambert’ - seen here - but recently I spent an evening at what is now it seems all too correctly named just ‘Rambert’ in which Ben Duke presents ‘Death Trap’, a performance of spoken theatre with songs and an occasional few minutes of dance.
At the end the usual enthusiastic whoopers were vocal and many stood to show their approval but in the queue to pay in the car park some usual suspects who have seen Rambert dance over many years were in agreed disappointment with this development away from dance.
I found the evening a muddle of many ideas thrown together. Presumably it was considered creative to do this and to mix moments of satire about news media with myth, ritual, live musical theatre and some short pieces of dance.
Notices warned of nudity, bad language and strobe lighting but none of these were in evidence.
Lack of any information sheet meant I was puzzled how the two parts connected, only to find later from previous reviews that they are separate pieces.
It was puzzling that the man sacrificed wearing a goat’s head who danced himself to death was then soon afterwards revived to dance acrobatically and inventively with his lover.
At one point I hoped a woman was going to intervene to stop the weird sacrifice but it had gone ahead, with many current good causes for protest called out during a group circle dance.
The singer was excellent even managing to bring some serious emotion to the well worn cliche of ‘feelings’- was this a deliberately set almost impossible challenge?
The signer was very expressive and occasionally amusing.
The musicians were fine.
The best humour was in the opening remarks about stopping the performance to accommodate any necessary phone calls in the audience.
The dancers were so good but only given a few minutes to use this medium.
Next year I will read the reviews before I book and hope Rambert return to giving us the treat of an evening of dance.
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