CHRYSALIS FEST REVIEW: How to Save the World... ish @ The Traverse
Beacon Young Company from Inverclyde present How to Save the World…ish.
"In a world that isn’t ours" everyone has a piece of string to carry - a string that helps keep the world floating in the universe. Slowly but surely people are losing faith and letting go of their string, so Sophie decides to go on a simple mission - to save the world. She travels around trying to convince people to keep hold of their string but is often given their string to hold herself, or offers to do so. Soon it all becomes too much and Sophie floats away, leaving us with a surprisingly bleak ending and a final question of what would’ve happened if everyone had just held onto their own string.
How to Save the World…ish is led by a strong ensemble of young talents who guide us through this storytelling piece from start to finish, creating an array of strong visuals depicting the events both literally and abstractly along the way.
Strong morals of social responsibility, empathy and helping others run through this piece and there is also something quite nicely reflective of this theme in the way the show is put together. The ensemble cast create synchronised movements throughout the piece as well as each cast member not only narrating it line by line but also each characterising multiple parts intermittently between these moments. They very much needed to work as a team for this so work so slickly, and did so very successfully.
Their enthusiasm, sharpness as a unit and as individuals and their own apparent enjoyment of performing the piece was something that transferred onto the audience and made it entertaining throughout.
Above all, what struck me about this performance - and infact all of the performances at Chrysalis - was how, despite all of these pieces featuring ensemble casts, each individual within them stood out on their own and came across hugely confident and inhibition-less. Seeing this in progressing young companies is so promising and exciting to watch, and I look forward to seeing what they all go on to do.
