According to drunk Rimbaud, “Art needs chaos. F*** rules”. And indeed, chaos turns into art in Pamela Carter’s revived Slope, the true love story between 19th Century poets Paul Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud.
If the first incarnation of Slope saw director Stewart Laing suspend the audience above a fully functional Victorian bathroom, eight years later he takes a turn for simplicity: By setting the play in the claustrophobic, low light, circle studio at Citz, barely any décor, and with the public sharing space with the actors, Laing manages to get to the core of Carter’s brilliantly dark text.
The minimalist set gives the actors room for expression. Slope is a story about love, madness and misery told through actors Owen Whitelaw’s and James Edwyn’s contorted bodies. Whether they fight, stumble about drunk or crawl on the floor naked, they coordinate perfectly, allowing the spectators to see and feel their every movement and muscular twitch.
In particular, Edwin’s performance of the neurotic Rimbaud (his first professional role), feels genuine and uninhibited, as if the crowd, or the several video cameras next to him, didn’t exist.
The play is streamed live through Kiltr. The broadcast may lose some of the intimate character of the studio, but some shots, particularly the bird’s eye view, reveal stunning imagery otherwise unavailable to the live audience. The online viewers are let in on Rimbaud’s message, written on pieces of cardboard: ‘We had more to show you, but the cowards and cretins don’t want you to see’. Is this Carter’s way of saying that, even today, there still is something illegal about homosexuality?
With three great central performances from its cast, coupled with dynamic stagecraft and inspired direction, Slope is gritty, smart, explicit, funny and visually fascinating.
Featured photo credit: emmaclairebrightlyn.com.
