Cow | Deer review – extraordinary sound journey into the lives of animals

Royal Court theatre, London Katie Mitchell, Nina Segal and Melanie Wilson’s ‘experiment in performance’ uses expressive performance and inventive sonic effects to bring a wordless world to lifeDown the road from the Royal Court, a building is adorned with the bust of a cow – a reminder that this area of London was once home to grazing dairy cattle and has history as farmland. Cow | Deer, an hourlong “experiment in performance”, co-created by director Katie Mitchell, writer Nina Segal and sound artist Melanie Wilson, is a sort of theatrical rewilding as the Upstairs stage is given over to a summer’s day in the life of a heavily pregnant cow and a young roe deer.Past productions at the Court have featured live animals, including half a dozen goats (eponymous stars of Liwaa Yazji’s play) and a scene-stealing goose (in Jez Butterworth’s The Ferryman). Here, the pair’s presence is instead painstakingly felt through myriad foley sound effects and field recordings. Standing at hay-bale desks, a cast of four – Pandora Colin, Tom Espiner, Tatenda Matsvai and Ruth Sullivan – get to work making noises with natural materials and manmade objects: gravel and tinsel, raffia and rope, a hot water bottle and a watering can. Plants and herbs are ground up throughout, their scent slowly filling the room. Continue reading...

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