Theatre de Complicité, founded by Simon McBurney and Kathryn Hunter in 1983, has produced some memorable productions, including The Visit, The Street of Crocodiles and The Three Lives of Lucie Cabrol, all notable for their physicality and the brilliance of the individual and collective mime.
Mnemonic, now revived and re-imagined 25 years after its premiere by McBurney, is still intellectually and theatrically challenging and continues to test an audience’s acuity to the full. The production lasts two hours. There is no interval.
The performance begins with a lively lecture delivered by Khalid Abdalla. His subject is memory and imagination and the connection between past and future. He then goes on to tell two historically linked detective stories, two explorations, two journeys among the dead, two tales of genocide.
A frozen corpse is found in the Alps. Abdalla, who takes on this role, appears naked for much of the time. The man died 5,200 years ago. Who was he? A modern woman goes missing whilst making a journey through Europe in search of family.
A multi-lingual cast, playing many roles, tumble through time. There are many striking images. The most moving is the reconstruction of the Alpine hunter’s death with the cast manipulating a folding chair, as if it were a Bunraku puppet.
There is satire at the expense of smug expert scientists in a Q&A session giving their contrary opinions on the dead man. There is also an evocation in silhouette of the serial photographs of motion by Eadweard Muybridge and the well-known frieze of ape turning into man.
To learn more about Robert Tanitch and his reviews, click here to go to his website. 
