13 Objects

By HOWARD BARKER
Liverpool Everyman 23rd October

Reviewed by Lesley Fraser

This play explores thirteen objects, which to some people may sound mundane but with Barker’s imagination and the performance skills of the Wrestling School they take on a life of their own in the form of thirteen smaller plays performed within the one.

One of these thirteen smaller plays worth a mention is centred on a rattle; here a member of the cast plays an infant who uses the rattle as a means of empowerment. Barker gives the impression that the infant’s role and significance in the adult world is one that depends greatly on the incessant shaking of the rattle for attention. So the rattle ceases to be a mundane object and becomes a symbol of communication and empowerment.

Barker manages to repeat this process successfully with some of the remaining twelve objects, however, not with the emotional content promised by the advertising description of the play, which now deserves a mention. This play to me is not exactly full of “Powerful and poetic language”, but it is “rich and dark in humour”. Unfortunately it was not compelling and the ticket payers on the opening night did not give the impression of an audience being drawn “into an exhilarating total experience”. That all said, according to the Times Howard Barker is “Britain’s greatest living playwright” so don’t miss out on the opportunity of seeing one of his plays, unlike me, you might find it exhilarating.