Written and Directed by Helgard Haug
Score by Barbara Morgenstern
Arranged by Davor Vincze
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For Manchester International Festival/Factory International
MIF23 is once again working with German theatre company Rimini Protokoll. This time it is to present the UK premiere of the award winning All Right. Good Night. This is a deeply meditative piece which uses sound and text to immerse its audience in a reflection on disappearance, loss and how we as humans deal with uncertainty. Running at approximately 140 minutes without interval, this could be a daunting prospect but it is actually one of the highpoints of this Festival. Beautifully conceived and exquisitely rendered this piece interweaves two real stories of loss to highlight the fragility of life and the tenacity of hope even in the most desperate of situations.
Helgard Haug explores the uncertainty, grief and bewilderment faced by those who lost loved ones on Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing which disappeared from the skies in 2014. She draws parallels with her own experience of watching her Father descend into dementia around a similar time. The Father as he is referred to in this piece was a man who meticulously planned for his future and poignantly had already built flats for dementia patients. Plans and actual outcomes sadly often differ…people may queue up to board a plane that never arrives…parents may plan for the possible onset of dementia never knowing that the illness may rob them of the capacity to adhere to those plans.
On Stage are 5 musicians from ZAFRAAN ENSEMBLE MUSICIANS and the rest appear on screen and in recordings. The music by Barbara Morgenstern is beautiful and perfectly reflects each event and year that passes for the families in these two stories of loss. The use of projection screens at the front and back of stage help narrate the story as text floats across the gauze hinting at the fragility of life. When the music expands to include the full ensemble they are projected moving across the screen playing their instruments and loop around to surround those actually on stage. The overall effect by Marc Jungreithmeier is wonderfully playful yet hints at the ephemeral ghosts of those lost souls no longer tangible in this world.
The performers on stage ebb and flow…queuing up as a crackling tannoy makes flight announcements, they reappear to literally build a sandy beaches as others dressed in swimwear merges instruments with deckchairs and other beach paraphernalia and fragments of plabe wreckage. Waves lap on the projector screen and light becomes warm and sun drenched as the performers gaze out at the endless horizon. Years roll by as The Father moves from gaffes with birthday cards, confusion, terrors and rages to the inevitable loss of self. Meanwhile each day family members gather at the Malaysian Embassy in Beijing still hopeful of news of loved ones. Each reported possible cure for dementia reignites hope for families just as endless conspiracy theories continue to let individuals hold a glimmer of hope that one day they will be reunited with loved ones.
All Right. Good Night. was reportedly the last recorded words of the pilot on that fated flight. They sound eerily similar to the reassurances of a parent as they leave a child to sleep in the knowledge that the dawn of a new day reunites them. This production gently reminds us all of the fragility of life and the uncertainty that it evokes. Like this lush production it is to be cherished and fully appreciated in the moment…for that may be all any of us have, and perhaps that is ultimately enough.
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