Review: Úr

Úr

The Mart

***

Sitting in a pitch-black old fire station with only droning bass and a handful of others for company, it is obvious before anyone even takes to the stage that performance collective Pettycash’s follow-up to last year’s Grindr is a much darker affair.

Úr mixes spoken word, theatre, music and installation, and presents itself without apology. It demands acceptance, addressing freedom, youth disempowerment and individuality. Put together with Hunt and Gather and Dean Venture, on setting and lighting respectively, it’s a visual treat. It’s loud, to the point where the constant looping, dissonant noise and deep, insistent bass intermittently mask the poetry. Add in the handmade noisemakers, and parts of the performance start to feel very chaotic.

It’s not lacking passion: the poetry is thrown at you in rhythmic, often breathless torrents, and you’ll come away thinking. However, the greater narrative, the expulsion they are calling for, gets slightly lost in the performance rollercoaster.

Until Sept 20