Review: The Mountain Giants

‘The Mountain Giants’ is the result of director Julia Hartley’s translation of Luigi Pirandello’s ‘I giganti della montagna’, with a final act noticeably penned by Hartley herself. We meet a Count and Countess with the remnants of their starving acting troupe arriving at the magician Cotrone’s enchanted villa; inhabited by a dwarf, a recently converted ‘Turk’ and a lady who seems to have borrowed Mary Poppins’ flying umbrella. Characters’ motivations are confusing and you are unsure most of time whether you are meant to be taking what they say seriously – in short, a lot of things don’t add up: cue some interesting theatre.

Spizzi (Nick Burns) caught in the act by Cromo (Matija Vlatkovic)

Catherine Haines, as the Countess who inspires both awe and disdain, was easily the most convincing performer. However, mentions must also go to Olivia Madin, Matija Vlatkovic and Ben Currie – whose performances were delivered with such energy and commitment to avoid being lost amongst the large ensemble. Sam Young was given the hardest task in terms of presenting the “mouthpiece for a complex discourse on the human imagination” (as Hartley describes Cotrone) and though the speeches were beautifully translated, and Young’s performance was watchable, ultimately more could have been done on his part to do justice to the character.

It was a shame that a few sound effects cut off abruptly, the ‘voice-over puppets’ were too quiet and the lighting monotone for the first act (though I understand this may have been dictated by the stage directions Hartley valiantly committed to stay true to) but it did mitigate the impact of the innovative sound design and meant the performance was slightly obfuscated at points. That said, I loved Nathan Klein’s eerie yet soothing music (please send those tracks over) and the set was impressive (the mountains and villa constructed for the first half disappear after the interval, hats off to the production team for making that happen!) the costumes lovely, and the overall aesthetic well presented – helping me very much to play along with this intentionally self-conscious ‘storybook’ world.

What is clear is that this production was a team effort, one they should be proud of, and one I urge people to go and see – despite any faults, it is a project whose ambition deserves support – I’ve not seen something like it in a while.

The Count (Moritz Borrmann) and the Countess (Catherine Haines)

The Mountain Giants is being performed at the Keble O’Reilly until Saturday. For more details see: https://www.facebook.com/events/426584430723168/?fref=ts