`Tell me a story", whispers the lover in the prologue to Isabel Allende's The Stories of Eva Luna. "Tell me a story you have never told anyone before. Make it up for me." Through music, song, projected image, dance and a pounding electronic sound track, Glasgow's Theatre Cryptic joins Hungary's celebrated physical theatre company, the Shamans, to tell us a story and to capture the "frozen images" so beloved of Eva Luna.
We may rest assured this story has, indeed, never been told before, because we make it up for ourselves. And every time, it will be different. It is somewhat ironic that director Cathie Boyd has been inspired by the writing of one of the world's greatest storytellers, yet has almost entirely abandoned the spoken text in this new extension to her theatrical vocabulary.
Still, we are richly compensated in the delicate, meticulous detail of every aspect of this compelling production - tiny feathers set in glass light boxes; rustling, sumptuous costumes; images of stained-glass windows, religious icons, sun-drenched doorways, secret stairways; glorious singing by Aileen Sim of a libretto of Baudelaire's poetry; the poignant violin of Fiona Winning and cello of composer Anthea Haddow; the thrilling, bruising dance encounter of Eva Magyar and Csaba Horvath. Suffering is etched across every note, every movement - from the conflict in Croatia, where the score was created and developed, to the oppression in Allende's native Chile and beyond. Rising above it all, whether from its early, cell-like enclosure or in its final, uplifting liberation, is music - cleansing, purifying, life-giving.
