The tiny Ustinov Studio at Bath’s Theatre Royal has, under the direction of Deborah Warner, been a crucible for intimate and varied theatrical experiences, including a trilogy of danceworks commissioned from choreographer Kim Brandstrup, inspired by Greek myths. Its concluding part, Echo and Narcissus, is a short work, exquisitely formed and performed. It is preceded on this programme by a replay of Brandstrup’s 2014 dance film Leda and the Swan and a live recital of Britten’s Six Metamorphoses after Ovid for oboe, played by Judy Proctor. Each serves to set up the main piece, the solitary voice of the oboe wandering through timings and tonalities, the film built upon a disjunction, indeed a dysfunction, between desires.
In Echo and Narcissus, those disjunctions are not only narrative (Echo’s desire for an indifferent Narcissus, Narcissus’s for his own unfeeling reflection) but also sensorial: throughout, sight and touch are counterposed, one marking distance and perception, the other marking connection and corporeality.
Jonathan Goddard as the blind oracle Tiresias stalks the edges of the piece like a frame, feeling his way around the walls. Echo (Laurel Dalley-Smith), by contrast, sets her sights on Narcissus (Seirian Griffiths) and keeps approaching to touch him. He, though, remains unaware of her attentions, whether in sleep (a beautifully fluent sequence suggests both unconsciousness and profound restlessness), or in more volatile duets in which he partners her more by touch than vision.
But the most striking episodes are between Narcissus and his reflection (Archie White), who perform small miracles of mirroring as they flip, ripple, eddy and flow, synchronised more by sensing than seeing each other. Each time Narcissus breaches the invisible barrier between them, White vanishes as fleetly as an image in ruffled water – a feat enabled by the portals set into the sparse decor, and by the suggestive lighting, all slanting shadows and glancing reflections.
For all the work’s poetry, and its consummate dancing, one element feels frustratingly absent: Echo’s curse, under which she can only speak what someone else has just spoken. It is her most defining trait and entirely in keeping with the theme of doubling, yet scarcely present here, choreographically or dramatically. Instead, the piece is all about Narcissus. Well, perhaps that’s apt. Certainly it is, like the figure of Narcissus himself, a potent blend of dark depths and beguiling beauty.
At the Ustinov Studio, Bath, until 6 July
