When You Pass Over My Tomb by Sergio Blanco adapted by Daniel Goldman. The Arcola, 24 Ashwin Street, Dalston, London E8 to 02 March 2024. 3✩✩✩ Review: William Russell.
When You Pass Over My Tomb by Sergio Blanco adapted by Daniel Goldman. The Arcola, 24 Ashwin Street, Dalston, London E8 to 02 March 2024.
3✩✩✩ Review: William Russell
“Choosing to die, necrophilia, and leaving something behind.”
Sergio Blanco plays tricks with time and place in this story about matters of death, desire and what one leaves behind, some of which work, some leave one bewildered and bemused as well as admiring the skill with which the cast of three slip in and out of reality and fantasy. Latine American writers, Latin Americans in general, are obsessed with death and Sergio, we learn, has decided to end it all by seeking out assisted suicide in Geneva at a clinic run by a Dr Goodman. He also wants to leave his body to a young necrophiliac he has formed some kind of relationship with.
The stories get told by three dead men and there are endless references to Shakespeare , to Mary Shelley , the VillaDiodati , Frankenstein and to Sergio’s collection of books in particular to Robinson Crusoe, although why that one escaped me, cows and apples – the latter being poison for Snowwhite. It is a layer cake of a play as we slip in and out of reality and gets fine performances from the players with Al Nedjari as Sergio masterminding things very skilfully. Some of it is not for the faint hearted – just what Khaled likes to do is made perfectly clear – and the instructions about the white silk gown Sergio’s corpse has to wear – all the easier to rip off before feasting begins - are breathtaking. The fact his heart will have been removed seems only to add to the pleasure. So too is the matter of fact behaviour of Dr Goodwin who is essentially a businessman as he outlines just what will happen to Sergio once he has complied with the necessary financial transactions.. The ghosts narrate the story as we move from one reality to another, or one fantasy to another perhaps, and we learn how the ghosts of Dr Goodwin and Khaled died. Sergio also has a ghost but he is not yet dead, just a corpse in waiting. The three players manage to make clear who they are – ghost or real person – which is just as well in the cicumstances. The evening should dazzle and on its second night of the run did not manage to do that until well into the evening. The Latin American obsession with death - Blanco is a Nicaraguan – is not necessarily something shared by the theatre goers of Dalston although everyone has to face up to it. Dr Goodwin insists the body knows how to die, not necessarily a comforting message in the circumstances and less so on a chill February night in a cold auditorium in Dalston.
The action takes place on a circular stage covered with green Astroturf on which there is a solitary bench and there are interludes while Sergio is filmed talking direct to camera operated by Khaled which are shown on two television screens above on eitjer side of the acting space. Sometimes various pronouncements about death and art by Sergio the dramatist are flashed up and as backlground music we get the Goldberg Variations. The quotations about art being about dead things do help with working out what the play is about but the vast plaster cow looking down on the proceedings does not.
Cast
Al Nedjari – ghost of Al/ Sergio.
Charlie MacCechan – ghost of Charlie/Khaled.
Danny Schellmann - ghost of Danny/ Dr Godwin.
Creatives
Director – Daniel Goldman.
Set and Costume Designer – Malena Arcucci.
Sound Designer – Hugh Sheehan.
Lighting and FX Designer – Richard Williamson.
Costume Supervisor –Beth Qualter Buncall.
Production photograph – Alex Brenner.
Theatre, play – 13 February 2024.
