Review of ‘What is Wrong with the World?’
April 24, 2008 by caareteam
Liza Adebisi
22 April 2008
What Is Wrong with the World?
By Station House Opera
Soho Theatre Bar, 21 Dean Street,
London W1D 3N
What Is Wrong with the World presents its audience with a series of ambiguous and dual surprises.
As we sit in the cosy comforts of the Soho Theatre Bar we are offered head sets to be acoustically connected to images projected onto a wall. The screen is split. It mirrors on one side the live show in Soho and transmits on the other side a simultaneous performance held in Rio De Janeiro…the wonders of internet!
The ambivalence of the storytelling is maintained as the split screen narrates the plot from two different worlds in two different languages. And, almost like indulging in this duality of style, the same story is being told from the point of view of two different couples, in which two characters seem to have a split personality.
Station Opera House entertain us for about an hour, lingering in the ludic pleasure of double acts, double meanings and Doppelgänger appearences.
All in all the show gives us the stark charm of a bipolar experience, doubtlessly charismatic and original in its code-switching of settings, characters, languages and audiences (because you also get to peep at the Brazilian audience through the screen in some instances).
And finally, to remain in tune with the show’s fashion, an ambiguous feeling is what is left. During the performance the audience is enchanted by the energy of the visual and acoustic devices, fascinated by the dynamic action, which is to be followed through the internet transmission, from Rio, onto the Soho streets beyond the glass doors and outside the theatre space, then back onto the stage of the theatre bar; literally never conceding you the time to distract your attention. Yet once all the much ado has stopped, the internet connection has been switched off and you have turned off the little acoustic gadget, you are left with little sentiment, in a way, with little fulfilment.
It feels rather like trying to identify the ingredients of a dish in which you have experimented with exotic spices. Having enjoyed the meal for its diversity, you are nevertheless left unsatisfied at the end, still trying to tell the missing ingredient: although you do not know what it may be, you know it is missing.
