Rich Jevons is awestruck by Grace Savage’s combination of beatboxing and naturalistic acting in an evening that both entertains and at times deliberately perplexes from the ever-challenging Leeds-based theatre company, The Paper Birds.
Firstly, a bit about what we are promised by this new Paper Birds production: “An interrogation into the influences on young women today, Grace Savage acts as quite literally a mouthpiece for her generation, exploring the songs, sounds and statements our world is making and the impressions these gradually form on our lives. Powered by one woman’s voice, Blind considers the things young women overhear, that they are told by their mothers, or learn in the school playground or the pop charts and asks how this background (and foreground) noise affects the people we become.”
So as you enter Fiammetta Horvat’s cheeky and kitsch little set you are given a tie on the way in, the significance of which it would be a spoiler to describe. And when the house lights dim there is a curve of small bulbs and an oblong design that frames the initial action that is in silhouette. Here we experience Grace’s birth and being sold out by her mother to the circus (don’t worry the autobiographical elements are stretching reality quite a bit).
But when Grace takes the main stage itself we are blown away by her beatboxing talents that, even without the use of a microphone, are simply astounding. Her skills, as it transpires, are the result of years of copying the sounds around her, and it is these very sounds, from youth to adulthood, that are the real subject of the play (beatboxing is just a part of the form).
Though it is worth describing her beatboxing style which is at time orchestral, she can sing simultaneously and her physical actions go to making this into something quite extraordinary. Her control of the microphone is second to none and she takes great pleasure in getting the audience to participate with a mini-masterclass that is both skilful and great fun!
She then falls into a more naturalistic acting mode as she describes the history of beatboxing as an art form, going back hundreds of years in Asian music and then up to the use of scat in jazz music. And then Grace tells us of her early influences, including her idol Pink, and her school friendship with Chloe that sounds like it might have got her in a few scrapes.
Throughout Grace builds up the sounds in layers using digital manipulation quite effortlessly (Darren Perry’s sound design deserves a mention here). And she even mimics news reports and snippets of conversation, especially some quite dodgy maternal advice. She can use this as a form of pleasure then at the ‘tie moment’ quite excruciatingly painfully (don’t worry, we’re carried through this so it’s quite cathartic).
So expect an hour of pure adrenaline that is just as cerebral as it is an urban form and therefore quite unique. Paper Birds have really taken a risk with this show and you can be assured it has most definitely been worth it.
As seen at Theatre in the Mill, Bradford, 24 October. National tour includes The Carriageworks, Leeds, 14 and 15 November.