Masterful atmospherics define Bullyache's latest production, A Good Man Is Hard to Find, now showing at Sadler's Wells East in London. The creative duo Courtney Deyn and Jacob Samuel, alongside five dancers, conjure a bleak world of excess, ritual, and power in this visually striking but limited piece of dance-theatre.
A Surreal Office Party
The scene resembles the aftermath of the bleakest office party: a giant boardroom table, a naked man on the floor, another with his suit trousers around his ankles, and someone urinating into a whisky glass. What follows feels like a surreal, less glossy version of the TV show Industry, with menacing games of power and domination in a coldly lit, hollow-feeling space. A cleaner arrives to mop up the body fluids before singing Ave Maria.
Darkly Intense Dance Theatre
Bullyache is known for creating darkly intense dance theatre, and this production is no exception. The set by Tor Studio features a wall of broken glass, as if a truck has driven through it, but the piece is actually about the people who drove a truck through the global economy in 2008. Halfway through, in a sudden mood switch, it becomes a gameshow, revealing that these wasted cretins are the bankers who caused the financial crisis. The audience is left to wonder what their fate will be.
Inspired by the Bohemian Club
The piece is inspired by the secretive San Francisco institution, the Bohemian Club, a gathering of rich and powerful men who participate in rituals including the cremation of care, where members cast off their worries or, in Bullyache's eyes, absolve themselves of guilt. Although the reference is not explicit in the show, there follows a Rite of Spring-ish ritual set to Shostakovich's chamber symphony in C minor, with the grim mood punctuated by classical leaps, Latin American swivel, punchy folk dance, and quasi-religious imagery.
Political Ambitions
The show offers stories of these men, but it leans a little too heavily on the idea that big bankers are bad. More specific detail would be more powerful. Are they specific people? What are their stories? What are the howling ramifications 18 years on? If you are going to be political, make it sting.
Masterful Atmosphere
The atmosphere-making is masterful, if depressing, with Bullyache writing their own music, including cranium-shaking soundscapes and songs of pain and loneliness. There is brilliant ambition here, but the show is reaching for something bigger. A Good Man Is Hard to Find runs at Sadler's Wells East in London until 9 May.
