Conversation Piece

Three actors, three dancers, one stage and an unscripted conversation; Lucy Guerin's Conversation Piece takes these elements and puts them through various permutations in a manner similar to Raymond Queneau's literary Exercises In Style. The results manage not only to pull apart the building blocks of conversation and social interaction – by examining each element; an exchange, an utterance, a glance or an offer, in an unexpected light or from an unusual perspective – a desire cited by Guerin, but also lay an interesting platform for 'potential' performance; what, if anything, can be made from these elements and their myriad combinations?

It begins with an eight-minute conversation as dancers Harriet Ritchie, Rennie McDougall and Alisdair Macindoe broach projectile vomiting, the Technocalypse, sex dolls and seafood, and a whole lot more. Recorded live to iPhones, it is then performed verbatim by Alison Bell, Matthew Whittet and Megan Holloway, all plugged into earphones. From here the conversation is warped, pulled apart and reconstructed before our eyes: played out as an awkard conversation on a train, as rhythm-driven interpretive dance, as fierce interrogation, as babbled nonsense.

It occasionally drags, at times the content feeling too familiar or repetitive, but it's the subtle nuances that arise from each permutation that make the work so intriguing, and the enormous and multifaceted skill of the entire cast ensure that the potential of this work comes to the fore. And in this case, it is, after all, the potential that is so engaging, more than enough to stir desires for a repeat viewing (or two, three…). Conceptually, Guerin has created the framework for a piece that cannot be exhausted.