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16 hours ago
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It may contain a brief moment of actual tree-hugging but this bracing solo show by Bryony Kimmings – her first in five years – is part of a sophisticated, adventurous new wave of eco-theatre. Like the Royal Court’s recent sonic experiment Cow | Deer and the musical comedy Hot Mess, which opens this month at Southwark Playhouse, Bog Witch finds fresh and compelling perspectives on the horribly familiar plight of our planet.
Season through season, Kimmings recounts a year of upheaval after moving to a regenerative permaculture homestead with her son, her partner and his daughter. It’s the tale of a town mouse nervously twitching in her new wilderness, cut off from Deliveroo and Selfridges. At times, Kimmings’ opening mix of standup and songs, plus an ever-present feline sidekick, suggest a kinship with the “farm fatale” comedy of Katie Norris.
But with consummate control, she shifts the evening from wisecracks to plain wisdom about climate catastrophe. She captures those everyday feelings of impotence amid global negligence when, for example, she realises a simple supermarket sandwich has clocked up more air miles than she has. Elsewhere, she conveys her bewilderment at a local harvest festival only accepting pre-packaged food items.
If the story is forward-facing it is also embedded in deep time, as Kimmings continually uncovers roots as ancient as those of the mighty oak tree she considers felling for the sake of a better view from her new home. English folk traditions of music, dance, craft and horror are all interwoven in the staging and the story, which also has a Watch With Mother-style narration about the progress of “poor Bryony” and tempestuous diversions into The Wizard of Oz and The Wicker Man territory.
Bolstered by Lewis Gibson’s sound design and Tom Parkinson’s compositions, simple pursuits or bucolic views are reframed through Kimmings’ spiralling anxiety and rocketing eco-awareness so that a bit of felting becomes a furious stab fest and a seemingly verdant landscape is reclassified as desert. In a production she co-directs with Francesca Murray-Fuentes, the tone is confessional, self-deprecating and sometimes like a cry for help. One scene in which she has to answer to her son for her climate footprint has a perfect blend of comedy and gut-churning terror.
Kimmings’ imagery is characteristically funny – a new countryside acquaintance has a daffodil-shaped face and a “house like a hobbit’s vagina” – while her physicality, in a production choreographed by Sarah Blanc, has grown even more assured. Will Duke’s projections, Guy Hoare’s lighting and the work of animators Raf Vartanian and Nathan Fernée combine with a woodcut-style effect and there is deftly handled audience participation.
Befitting her new country life, Kimmings is continually hard at work, dressed in variations of cottagecore fashion and busying herself with tasks on Tom Rogers’ simple yet evocative set, with its boundary of tree stumps and fragile-looking branches. Themes of haunting and witchcraft are playfully and darkly threaded throughout, from Naomi Klein’s theory of the shadow self to an intimidating coven of local mums.
It’s a thrill to see Kimmings back, her vision filling the huge stage of this gorgeously restored theatre. This is a climate reckoning of both cosmic and quotidian proportions – and a theatrical time capsule of the way we live now.
