Thread The­atre Com­pa­ny’s phys­i­cal the­atre work The Keep­ers  starts tomor­row night at BATS The­atre.   The sto­ry is that “two women inhab­it an iso­lat­ed light­house on a small rocky island in the mid­dle of an ocean. One arrived by row­boat, unan­nounced and unex­plained — the oth­er seems to have been here for­ev­er. The women are both drawn to and repelled from the oth­er. As the days roll by their iden­ti­ties become inex­plic­a­bly inter­twined, and the bound­aries between the two become increas­ing­ly blurred. ” The devis­ers Julia Croft and Veron­i­ca Brady say it explores mem­o­ry, love, loss, and how peo­ple hold onto, or let go of, things in their lives. It’s a piece that sounds intrigu­ing as there isn’t a lin­ear nar­ra­tive, and much of the sto­ry is told through move­ment.  They are joined on stage by Claire Cow­an who pro­vides the sound­scape. Appar­ent­ly she plays uncon­ven­tion­al instru­ments (a buck­et, paper) along­side more tra­di­tion­al ones (cel­lo, vio­lin.) All three are clear about nar­ra­tive in the piece but part of the fun for us as audi­ence is that we don’t get to see all of it. Instead, we get to use our imag­i­na­tions and fill in the sto­ry.

The work was designed to tour so the set is sim­ple and min­i­mal­ist. Items on stage have mul­ti­ple func­tions. (That explains where the buck­et comes from.) It’s inten­tion­al­ly ambigu­ous so the sto­ry can’t be fixed to a par­tic­u­lar loca­tion or a par­tic­u­lar time.

Thread The­atre want us to bring our own expe­ri­ences and view of the world. If you have time after the show, they’d love to hear your inter­pre­ta­tion.

  • The Keep­ers by Thread The­atre on at BATS The­atre, 19–29 Sep­tem­ber 2012.