Golem – 1927/The Young Vic
Mad but brilliant. Beats you over the head with a theme but does it in style. Uses technology to satirise our addiction to technology. References German literature, Jewish folklore, Expressionist cinema of the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari vein and The Daily Mail. 1927: my new favourite theatre company.
I go to a lot of theatre, but mainly from an acting point of view: someone whose acting I like is in a play, or someone who I’ve seen on screen and want to see live on stage. It’s not often I go because the idea of a play intrigues me, but this was the case with Golem, which had a short run at the Young Vic in December/January, and has just put tickets on sale for a West End transfer in April/May. I liked the slightly German Expressionist-style posters, and the concept of a modern play about a Golem, and with tickets starting at £10 I thought I would give it a try.
Brilliant decision, as it turns out. I hadn’t seen any previous works by 1927, not even their much-toured The Animals and Children Took to the Streets, but I will most definitely be going to see their next offering. 1927 mix live action and music with animation, creating a detailed world against which the action takes place from little more than a white background, creative costumes, and projections. The central character, Robert Robertson (played with skill by Shamira Taylor), works in the Binary Backup Department, is in a band with his sister and some friends, and meets a nice young lady, Joy, who gets a job looking after the stationary cupboard. Any universe in which the person doing the stationary dresses as a pencil gets my vote, that’s for sure.
Anyway, Robert’s life is not so slowly turned upside down after he buys a Golem from his friend Phil Sylocate. While at first the Golems are friendly, lumpy, slow-talking clay characters, they soon get upgraded into zippy, flighty, annoying newer models, with consequences not just for Robert but for seemingly everyone in town apart from Robert’s sister Annie as narrator. The delight of watching the clever animations, the immersive costumes and music and rhythmic delivery was a really absorbing ‘flow’ experience, in which the 90 minutes flew by. I can see why it takes 1927 years to put together a show: the amount of rehearsing that must go into making all of those elements come together so perfectly is immense. Although the underlying message is certainly not subtly out across, the aesthetic and production values are such that it is imperative that any theatre fans (or people wanting an unusual yet enjoyable night out) go to see Golem.
So if you have the chance to go and see this in the West End, please do, I would thoroughly recommend it. If you can’t make it then have a look at their videos on YouTube, which are not as flow-inducing but might tempt you to see something by 1927 in the future.