A howl of protest, a ballet of pillage and destruction
Uprooted photo: Alex Brenner
Daniel Nelson
Uprooted is a nerve-jangling howl of protest - against the rape of Latin America’s natural resources, its indigenous peoples, its environmental defenders, many of whom are women (“violence against land and violence against women are part of the same system”)
The snarling, vicious, masked aggressors are colonialism and unquenchably greedy capitalism, nowadays often supported by fascist militaries.
What has been crushed is represented in the soft-spoken opening comments, addressed directly to the audience, about the self-sustaining, nurturing idyll of pre-colonial Mexico.
But the one-hour show rapidly ratchets up the momentum, summoning up a whirlwind of cruelty, forced possession, death, arson and, finally, a liquid wall of toxic sludge that bursts its bounds and buries people in its path.
It’s a ballet of pillage and destruction, a frenzy of movement, shrieks, jarring metallic sounds, whipped up by a group of five performers and devisers: at one point the “live lighting” crew are careering around the stage, manoeuvring to keep up with the actors.
It’s powerful, and a couple of times, when the pace slows before resurging to a new crescendo, the twinkling lights on a darkened stage are elegiacally magical, like an Attenborough sequence of underwater luminescence.
There’s little room for individual narrative amidst this thunderous anger and violence, apart from an attempt near the end to humanise some of the victims of the burst dam. But there are limits to what you can say and do in 60 minutes about centuries of oppression. Perhaps it’s enough to declare, as this performance does, “This is not progress: this is plunder.”
Uprooted, £19, Saturdays pay what you can, is at the New Diorama Theatre, 5 - 16 Triton Street, Regent's Place, NW1 3BF until 25 October. Info: New Diorama
Ephemeral Ensemble “is a multi-award-winning, international physical theatre collective. They make unique work that smashes together raw physicality, electrifying original music and scorching visuals to craft a narrative that hits hard and sparks imagination. Inspired by fact-based stories, their work spotlights urgent social issues, and is created in collaboration with global communities to empower a narrative of care.”