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Preview: The Handmaid’s Tale

Cherwell’s Verdict
“Not Maid for the faint-hearted” 

If The Handmaid’s Tale is set in a world of suppression and autonomy, then the cast of this operatic version of Atwood’s novel is a far cry from the society they reproduce. With roles passed merrily around the group over the course of different scenes, musicians becoming actors and singers becoming dancers, the overall effect adds to the abstract atmosphere of the story whilst also rallying a tightly-knit and highly cooperative cast.

A group of enthused undergrads and postgrads have got together to write, perform and stage the production, which, whilst closely based on the book, exploits the full potential of the Jacqueline du Prés music room as a space for sound, dance, and visual effects. I am told that one moment of the opera will consist of all the pianos in the building being played simultaneously with the internal doors open to create a homogenous mass of noise, the floor of the acting space is to be a scrabble-board, and projections on the balcony will create various effects and backdrops.

The use of space is certainly highly original. I watched the on-going rehearsal from the stage looking down into the area usually used by the audience but wrongly assumed this was a temporary arrangement. The audience for this particular production will be treated to a place on the floor literally at the feet of the actors; later they will be moved up onto the raised stage where I sat and view the production at the eye-level of an actor, a surprisingly more engaging experience which cuts out the all too familiar situation of leaning backwards in the seat, squinting with an aching neck at the actors above. Yet the balcony of the concert hall is also put to use, and actors emerge singing and spitting from underneath the stage itself. ‘Spitting’ is no exaggeration unfortunately; within innovative and haunting melodies from all members of the cast (a duet between Ellen Timothy and Anna Appleby re-enacting the perverse ‘ceremony’ of reproduction in Atwood’s dystopia was particularly striking), is a slightly heavy-handed tendency for experimental musicianship.

Repeated words, stuttering consonants, wordless a capella and ad lib singing combine to make much of the music indistinguishable from the rest – you certainly won’t leave this opera singing your favourite tunes Gilbert-and-Sullivan style – yet this is hardly the point. Their aim is to shock, to experiment and to challenge, and in this they will almost undoubtedly succeed.

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