Live Performance Review - The Marvellous Life of Carlo Gatti
Image credit: Sarah J Clarke.
Look, I won’t be facetious with this one: I am yet to fully grasp the fine art of theatre production. Maybe I’m simple, maybe it’s the fact that I was five minutes late, but I wholeheartedly struggle to keep up with these fancy stories built on imagination and limitations. But hey, can’t deny that this kind of stuff isn’t intriguing.
So, what is The Secret Life of Carlo Gatti about? Well it’s certainly not about the long-dead Carlo… It’s more so about his impact, as his introduction of ice cream to Victorian-era Britain plays on repeat like a symphony throughout The Secret Life. Drenched in allegories and metaphors with chasers of foreshadowing and hindsight, this play pits timelines and logics against each other as a psychologist and a physicist grapple with the meaning of life in a life of exclusion. Though both are accomplished, neither reach their crowning moment until their introduction to each other upon a rooftop behind a rendition of Chopsticks.
Like I said, I’m a simple man still trying to fathom exactly what theatre is. It’s high-class, that’s for certain. Looping back to the point of limitations I mentioned earlier, I must admit that I am a man of increased budgets and extravagant expenditures, neither of which was on display for this performance, but that’s what I mean when I say I’m still gaining my legs for this type of entertainment. It’s miles beyond what cinema can do when measuring the intimacy of a performance, but its experimentational possibilities can also scare off little country mice such as myself.
The Secret Life of Carlo Gatti definitely expects a level of familiarity with the theatre-genre upon entrance, but it’s still got enough substance to grip those with enough patience. I exited the theatre with feelings of satisfaction, curiosity, and resolve. For a movie in the cinema this would be a check of approval, though for this, and again maybe it’s my own self-doubt, but I leave entertaining the idea that I missed something. Will I continue pondering what this is? Absolutely. And that is what I would define as a tick of approval for any media.
Gripping through its lack of elaboration and enhanced by its creative solutions to keep the show afloat and on track, this one is great for a night of new experiences and audience participation. Not in a literal sense, but it’s really up to you to scoop out the deeper meaning buried beneath all this ice cream.
The Marvellous Life of Carlo Gatti runs 3-13 August at Explosives Factory. For tickets and more info, click here.