re:mote voices

Title: Vanishing Point's "Lost Ones"
Cast: Sandy Grierson, Rocio Galan, Claire Lamont, Alasdair Macrae, Catherine Whitefield
Director:Matthew Lenton
Venue and Date:Tron Theatre 14th September 2005

Theodore's wife is in the bedroom, packing a suitcase. Together they are going to flee. But while she does that, he explains to us how bad a week he has had. It started on Monday, when Mrs. Henry came round. After their conversation, Mrs. Henry hangs herself, and Theodore becomes haunted by her son Billy - who died on a school trip. A school trip where all the children died... except Theodore.

As the week goes on, he is visited by the ghosts of the other children. As the week goes on, strange creatures burst from his flesh, carrying bits of him away into the night. As the only survivor of the school trip Theodore is in deep trouble, and unless he gets away with his wife now, gets away from the spirits who have been seeking him out ever since, he believes he will not survive the night.

Lost Ones is partly a monologue in style, Theodore talks to the audience, stepping through his week. However the other actors work around him - drawing him into their hauntings as they visit him each night. In turn turning into flashbacks as to what happened to those children who went to St. Peter's On The Hill, a school for "special" children, and the tragic school trip up a mountain one winter's day.

Six performers take the various parts - Theodore, Billy, Mrs. Henry/Lilly, Theodore's wife/Millie, the school teacher, and the giant rabbit who wanders about stage periodically. The stage set is minimal - an armchair, a blackboard, and a fridge - making more use of lighting, smoke machine, fake snow and the wall at the back of the stage with its moving doors and screens. With that the group make the most of what they have - from a sloped table with hand figures in spotlights struggling up a mountain only to be downed by gunfire to standing in front of a spotlight to appear gigantic while talking to one of the emergent creatures.

The listing on the CCA site from the proposal stage for Lost Ones talks about the influences of Edward Gorey and Haruki Murakami on writer/director Matthew Lenton. The characters have a definite over the top garishness that recalls Gorey, the other performers over acting to contrast Theodore's despair, and to accentuate the humour at the piece. While the tragic school trip up a mountain has clear parallel's with Murakami's most recent novel Kafka On The Shore. On the whole Lost Ones works a clever and careful balance between humour and horror - creeping cartoon figures and giant rabbits haunt the night in an absurd manner, but they are grasping and claustraphobic figures, complimented by the deliberate lighting. The addition of gun shots, murder, ghosts and suspense mean that Lost Ones has disturbing under currents.

Lost Ones is a play put together by the Glasgow based theatre group Vanishing Point, developed while they were in residence at the CCA (contemporary Centre of Art) in the summer of 2004. Currently touring again by "popular demand", we caught one of two performances at the Glasgow Tron Theatre, where it had been selected as the Tron's Best Play of 2004.