Sonic experience let down by an unsuitable slot

Published on Monday 3 September 2007 12:08

Optical Identity ***

Royal Lyceum Theatre

LOOMING up out of the darkness on high-backed chairs, the T'ang Quartet looked like musical druids seated around a megalithic stone circle.

Stage smoke caught in the spotlights, making Kevin Volans' White Man Sleeps feel like the musical equivalent of a meeting of Macbeth's witches.

The deadening effect of the drapes and curtains around the stage of the Royal Lyceum theatre did nothing for the sound of the quartet, however.

To make matters worse, the on-stage links of video artist Jasch failed in action. As the concert continued, a whole section of video effects was clearly missing.

Subsequent pieces did sound better on the theatre stage, thanks to electronic amplification. Using their conventional quartet of two violins, viola and cello as a basis, the quartet explore the world of feedback and deconstructed sound.

This is the formalised, classical music equivalent of the sonic experiments carried out by the Grateful Dead in Ken Kesey's infamous Acid Tests of the 1960s.

Listening to pieces like Manual Override by Joey Talbot is less like listening to music and more like partaking in an audio experience.

It was certainly a full-on sonic thrill. However, despite its theatrical presentation, theatre it is not.

It begs the question why this collaboration between Cathie Boyd's Theatre Cryptic and the T'ang Quartet was placed in the EIF's theatre programme.

Modern music like this certainly has a wider audience than conventional classical concerts, but that audience is not going to be found by labelling it as theatre and placing it in the Lyceum.

• Run ended