Running from now until the 24 November is Imitating The Dog’s interpretation of the classic Joseph Conrad novel Heart of Darkness.
This is a brilliantly created and performed production, that confronts and challenges its audience.
It takes the story of Heart of Darkness and transposes it to a late 70’s nightmare vision of Europe, battered and devastated by some unmentioned, cataclysmic war that has left that continent bereft of civilisation and society. America and Russia are no longer the super-powers they were, and the African continent has risen to be the influential and civilised touch-point of the world. From Congo comes Marlowe: A private detective sent to bring to heel one Mr Kurtz, a camp overseer in England. Marlowe travels the deserted motorways of Europe, working her way through encounters with enemy agents, unexpected allies and the horror of the burnt out remnants of a once majestic Europe.
If this sounds familiar to you, it may be because Heart of Darkness was famously adapted and re-told for screen in Frances Ford Coppola’s searing epic, Apocalypse Now. Indeed, in one of the out-takes from the story we see Coppola himself talking about the production on a video screen, and its takes a heartbeat to suddenly realise that whilst you can see this video of Coppola, the vocal is actually coming from the stage: One of the cast, Matt Prendergast, has memorised the speech, down to mannerisms and gestures and is repeating and recreating it perfectly on stage. As a moment on the stage, it bought a huge grin to my face to see this done, to be able to see not just the story about how this particular story came to be, but also the influences that are such a huge part of any modern interpretation of Heart of Darkness. As a side note here, the production references a great many pop-culture classics including Dawn of the Dead, Mad Max and Blade Runner, pulling in influences from all.
Mentioning the video-screens, we are given a unique and imaginative presentation throughout utilising three video screens suspended from the ceiling. Together with a larger screen that serves as a back-drop to the stage, we are given as assault on the senses as sound, music, text and acting are presented to the audience concurrently, giving an overload of information at times. For the actors on the stage, they are seen on the screens using green-screen backdrops and real-time effects to give a feeling almost like a comic book at times, very reminiscent of Frank Miller’s Sin City. It’s a wonderful and unique way to present a theatre production and really added to the experience.
A powerful moment that utilises the video screens wonderfully is a video of Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe throwing some harsh critique at Conrad’s work, Its pretty brave to include such stark criticism of your source material in the on-stage adaptation, but here the criticism is levelled at the story that Heart of Darkness is telling and turns it on its end. It’s brave in that its story-telling mechanism uses dramatised elements of the development of the play itself, showing the debates arguments had by the company over how to present their piece, how to update it, and how to confront the elements of racism that inhabit the work. That’s not to say that Heart of Darkness is a racist work but as the Artistic Directors of Imitating The Dog say in their programme notes “it is also of its time and its time was racist”. With this is mind, the geo-politics are reversed: here Africa is the influential continent plundering Europe. Marlowe is no longer a white Englishman travelling The Congo, but a black woman travelling the roads of Europe. The journey is not terrorised by African savages, but by European militia.
All in all, I thought this presentation of Heart of Darkness was an incredible piece of work, beautifully imagined and boldy interpreted and told with a confident and thoughtful voice. I would firmly recommend seeing it, and will be looking out for future work from Imitating The Dog.
If you liked our review and would like to see it, please click here to purchase tickets https://www.birmingham-rep.co.uk/whats-on/heart-of-darkness.html Tickets from £15 each.
Post written by Mr Trips
Photos by Lara Vulgulti