Noted physical company Gecko bring their latest production, Kin, to the stage of the Lyttelton as part of a short tour.
Created by artistic director Amit Lahav and developed by his team of devising performers, all immigrants from other languages and cultures, Kin presents vignettes of cruelty and dehumanisation.
With what dialogue there is presented in the home language of each performer, Kin has to be followed via its visual cues, playing out in scenes of dance, mime, and the shorthand of gesture.
Lit brilliantly by Chris Swain with a mixture of handheld spotlights (a TV screen and a two-bar heater often offering the only illumination, but used in a way which is powerful enough to draw in your eye), Kin is intimate and personal.
Lahav drew on his own grandmother’s journey from Yemen to Palestine in the 1930s as a starting point, but Kin is always contemporary and wide-ranging.
Presenting immigrants drowning in small boats and a family in turbans being treated as human animals until they adopt a white identity, this production captures the rhetoric that immigrants are bad, should disappear, can be rejected.
One or two scenes didn’t quite connect. A young man who is drawn to soldiers felt awkwardly placed, while a blonde pair of Westerners gaining easy entry to a ship seemed to jar with the tone around them.
Where Kin excels is in the small moments where families are ripped apart and where menace really becomes real. The inclusion of puppet characters was excellent, but I wanted more.
The use of a stage revolve, a single backdrop, and a recorded soundtrack with beating drums, laments, and music all help to create an atmosphere and keep things going.
In a world where hate is across the media, whether newspapers or social networks, where the murder of children by bombing or inertia is sanctioned, where immigration is used for political gain, shows like this are needed.
I liked Kin, but I didn’t love it, finding the most moving moment when the actors stepped forward one by one at the end detailing their stories, about home, about peace.
If you are open to thinking about immigration and doing some work yourself to connect the dots on what Gecko is presenting, head to see this.
Kin is at the National Theatre until 27 Jan. Tickets here.
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Image credit: Mark Sepple