Theatre review: Torn, Glasgow

LOVINGLY crafted over two years by Francisca Morton and her team from Faux Theatre, Torn is a gorgeous, thoughtful 45 minutes of wordless theatre, full of emotional courage and pure invention.

Francisca Morton cant escape old blue jeans in Torn. Picture: Andy Catlin

Torn - Tron, Glasgow

* * * *

Morton says her show is inspired by a simple love of paper, as well as a fascination for “moments held in time”; the combination produces a sad, by no mean simple tale of love gone wrong, as the story’s sole character moves around a lonely room full of torn, piled and crumpled paper, trying to make sense of the memories that haunt her, represented by a pair of male blue jeans that keep surfacing, despite her efforts to keep them at bay. Morton is a compelling performer, while director and design consultant Shona Reppe and lighting designer Laura Hawkins work together to evoke a memorably wrecked domestic environment, full of transient comforts and huge emotional hazards.

Also crucial to Torn’s impact is the wonderful range of subtle sound produced live by Foley artist Barney Strachan, intertwined with recordings of such torch song classics as La Vie En Rose. In these small whispers and crunches of sound echoing through a lonely flat, the show’s reflection on loneliness achieves its greatest poignancy; although the journey is brief, it leaves a vivid impression of a heart crumpled, shredded, like the waste paper crowding the stage.

• Adam Smith Theatre, Kirkcaldy, 17 June; Dundee Rep, 24 June