Hofesh Shechter’s amazing production, a marriage of dance and rock, is a spectacular and stunning theatrical event. The energy is unrelenting. There are 24 musicians in banked ranks above the stage. The electronic score and the drumming, pounding away, are deafening. There is also a demagogue who yells through an amplified microphone. There are sixteen dancers who leap, run around in circles, drift, stagger, scramble, crawl and bunch up, constantly grouping and regrouping. The movement is strange, frenetic, convulsive, distorted and repetitive. Lighting and darkness are used to edit the various set pieces, snapping from one image, from one tableau to another, with cinematic jump cuts.
The dancers could be either refugees, political prisoners, supplicants, lost souls, or mentally disturbed. Their hands are often raised in a tribal and folk dance manner. There is rage, anguish and submission; and there are also unexpected and welcome moments of repose when baroque music is played and things momentarily calm down.
The seats in the stalls have been removed and the younger members of the audience are able to stand and, should they wish, react as if they were at a rock concert. Political Mother is an extraordinary, powerful, exciting and exhilarating experience for all ages.