The Guardian Angel (Jessica Cale) and the Angel of Death (Michael Ronan) face off in Angels on the Underground, a new chamber music work with libretto by Sally Gardner and music by Will Todd; photo (c) Leahairphotography.
Zahid Siddiqui (Young Man), Jessica Cale (Guardian Angel – See it), Rebecca Leggett (Angel of Dreams – Say it), Michael Ronan (the Angel of Death – Sorted), The Sixteen, Jack Redman (piano), Sarah Sexton (violin), Milos Milivojevic (accordion), Thomas Grey (guitar) / Harry Christophers. Staging by Aidan Lang, videos by Nina Dunn and lighting design by Lucía Sanchez Roldán. Sponsored by the Genesis Foundation. Young Vic, 8th May.
Review by Agustín Blanco-Bazán
In Harry Kupfer´s London staging of Gluck´s Orphée ed Eurydice, the passage to the Hades opens at one of the tunnel entrances at the end of the narrow island platform of the old Angel underground station. Aidan Lang´s staging of Will Todd and Sally Gardner´s Angels on the Underground (a 50 minutes chamber work) shows another platform, this time at an anonymous underground station where three angels challenge the plans of a similarly nameless Young Man to end his own life under the train. His projected descent into this final abyss is at times anticipated by Nina Dunn´s videos of a tunnel symbolizing the transit into the unknown awaiting not only him but, sooner or later, a choir of commuters impatiently bustling around the platform. Only a continuous yellow line with the usual “mind the gap” warning separates the stage from the audience admitted to the small studio at the Young Vic where this premiere took place.
Zahid Siddiqui, as the Young Man; photo (c) Leahairphotography
Todd´s tonal score somehow reminds us of Jack Heggie´s musical style in its accessible by all lyric directness. But it would be deceptive to focus on this apparent simplicity and not to highlight as well the complex interaction between singing lines and the four instruments supporting them: a violin, an accordion, a piano and a guitar are all craftily intertwined with voices in a narrative that combines a terse development of melodies with chromatic contrast and clear counterpoint. Another important feature contributing to the strength of the work´s dramatic progression is the way in which the commuters spontaneously combine unison passages very much in the style of a Greek chorus with fleeting soliloquies betraying their individual anxieties: “where did my dreams go?”, “I am too old for a city”, “will she put up my wages?” “this journey always takes ages”, etc. Some of these reflexions involve prejudices directly related to the scruffy protagonist waiting for his final train: “last week there was another one on the lines. A bloody tragedy, no one could save him”, “that young man was here last week. Glad he is no son of mine.”
The Sixteen, commuting; photo (c) Leahairphotography
It is among this bunch of disoriented commuters that the Young Man (sung by Zahid Siddiqui with clear phrasing and well projected sound) proclaims his desperation in high-pitched piercing monologues betraying his anger and his wish to be “buried before I am dead.” His pleas are noticed by three angels interspersed among the crowd. See it, a soprano, acts as a guardian angel able to report on the young man´s past of dreams and frustrations, while Say it (an alto voice) proclaims the mission of mercy and salvation we all expect from angels (in case should they exist!). To both of them Sort it, an angel with WEARING red gloves representing death answers with implacable boldness: “You are filled with empathy of which I have none. I am here to take a mother´s son, a father´s son, a grandson. My job is to sort it that what needs to be done.” Jessica Cale and Rebecca Leggett convincingly vocalized the first two with steady filled-out tone and Michael Ronan ably contrasted their inspired commitment with a warm and vivid baritone timbre.
Harry Christopher´s conducting combined dramatic intensity with a clear differentiation of textures in the difficult task of balancing choral passages with an orchestra of only four musicians. Or should we say four soloists instead of “orchestra”? Perhaps both, bearing in mind the way in which orchestral and choral-like passages convincingly alternated with solos through which each instrument managed to convey a message of their own: a new-age guitar rasgueado, a naughtily ironic punctuating by the accordion, expansive legato lines by the violin, and full bloodied piano accords.
Somehow the Mind the Gap yellow line separating the performers from the public will have to persist in the film planned as the final product of this poignant intermezzo which Todd described to his live audience at the Young Vic as “music theatre”, namely a symbiosis of music and poetry this time focused on a fleeting theatrical action. It is an action to be shared with, rather than presented to, a contemporary audience. Either patrons manage to feel the psychodrama at the core of the work, or its meaning gets as lost, as it happens with the commuters longing to dream of angels but unable to do so. The work ends with a message of redemption as vague as their passing thoughts: in the end the Young Man is Everyman facing the challenges of life and death. Whether Todd and Gardner manage or not to convey this message, or any message at all, depends on the sensibility of each spectator.