We couldnt hear her, we couldnt see her so for now this is her voice.
In a Thousand Pieces explores the devastating experiences of Eastern European women who are forced into the dark world of sex slavery. Through live recordings, statistics and a plethora of vivid physical sequences, The Paper Birds have taken on an enormously dark and desperate subject and at some moments do it admirable justice. By their own admission however it did not come naturally to them and this is evident through the overly complicated movement pieces throughout this show which sometimes distract from the horrifying and simple power of the subject.
A womans voice speaks through a crackling recording as she tells of being beaten, tied with electrical tape and raped continuously by 8 men over a 5/6 hour period. Although there is a quiet physical performance taking place on stage (one of the performers is reacting to the words) I cannot for the life of me remember precisely what it is due to the engrossing and horrific hypnotism of what this woman is hesitantly but fluidly and bravely saying. Any visuals at this point are superfluous and I feel it would have been better to leave the stage still or even empty and to realise that nothing theatrical could do justice to this real life experience.
However Elle Moreton, Jemma Mc Donnell and Kylie Walsh perform with passion and are clearly committed to telling this story which desperately needs to be told and it is when they make themselves vulnerable that they are most convincing. As they come tentatively out of a trap door on stage to a disturbing and dirty electronic pulse, they are exposed in black stilettos and white bustiers with black rectangles of cardboard covering their eyes. The immediacy and power of this simple image is palpable. One hesitantly tells us about how this has been inspired by a piece of footage on the news taken by an undercover reporter of woman parading for him in a circle in skimpy red and black underwear. Although trying to represent the truth, our performers cannot bring themselves to imitate the women's underwear and instead the white bustiers will have to do. They know that we would be looking just as we would at you. By putting themselves under scrutiny and revealing their discomfort the connection with the victims they are portraying is more apparent.
This production is also at its most engaging when it pastiches peoples views on sex slavery to darkly hilarious and thought provoking effect. Two of our performers lip sync to recordings of interviews from people on the street with views which travel the spectrum of well they should just get another job, its not that hard to horrified queries on how such atrocities can still be taking place in our modern society. Unlike the previous moment, where the performance distracted from the power of the recording, here the visuals enhance it, the performers subtly commenting on each subject and their opinion and inviting the audience to do so.
The piece is scored by haunting live piano music composed and performed on stage by Shane Durrant. This interlinks intrinsically to each moment of performance and reflects it change in nuance from moment to moment helping the audience to begin to engage with this material on a subconscious emotional level. For the most part it is responsibly and subtlety orchestrated however on occasion I felt that I was being manipulated by it and that it could have been used with a slightly lighter touch to greater effect.
The Paper Birds say that they believe the show is fractured, multi layered and at times, confused and I would completely agree. I believe that the confusion lies in a nervousness to keep it simple when necessary and a number of layers in this piece could have been removed. As it crescendoes into a tapestry of music, movement, voice, recording and reaches a chaotic climax, one gets the sense that they felt they needed a strong ending. At moments this is truly amazing work, but by over dressing it they have covered the true voices of the sex slaves themselves in a whirl wind of theatrical sound and fury.
