BRISTOL based multi-award-winning theatre company, Mechanimal, will be showing a theatrical experience like no other at the Merlin Theatre on Wednesday 7th September at 7.30pm.
Megalith is led by creative director Tom Bailey and explores life on a changing planet.
With copper having jet-fuelled technology for the last 10,000 years, a performer and sound artist playfully duet to deep-time techno, metamorphic soundscapes and the Internet of Things. Neolithic flint tools smash stones and laptops in this wildly physical journey to the origins and 21st century challenges of mining, from 2018 Herald Angel winners. Get yer strata on.
Megalith begins with a breakdown. Nothing works. Technical help is sought. After turning it all off and on again, smashing things is the only solution. Any more detail would be a spoiler for this mysterious, destructive, cathartic show about how the base materials for human communication are buried in the earth. A new performance, Megalith, is described as a play about copper mining but in practice is a deeply visual, almost wordless poem that holds its cards close to its chest.
Rocks. Beats. Geological bodies. Stone circles. Copper mining. A violent, fun, loud and lyrical smash-fest, with landscape projection design from award-winning Limbic Cinema.
A spokesperson for the Merlin Theatre says, “A stunningly good sound design proves to be the backbone. Gut-churning feedback is played with virtuosity, and the play’s storming techno climax is genuinely thrilling. It becomes hypnotic and weirdly relaxing to watch great lumps of flint crash against each other, their chalky coating looking far too much like bone. And over time, Megalith’s building-site chic feels constructive rather than destructive, inviting many questions about ecology, the ethics of mining, the lineage from neolithic tools to today’s digital assistants.
“The play’s third act feels vague and unresolved, like a cave painting yet to be decoded: a more concrete resolution would help to drive home Megalith’s powerful ideas.”
Tickets cost £14 (concessions £11) and are on sale now. To purchase tickets visit: merlintheatre.co .uk or call the box office 01373 465949.
