Mantra at the RADA Studios, London.
Star rating: three stars ★ ★ ★ ✩ ✩
The stage is bare but for a white curtained cubicle and an orange plastic chair which echoes the image on the screen above. An actor walks on wearing a short gown which is a cross between a straitjacket and a garment by a designer given to asymmetric creations.
He enters the white cubicle and interacts with a voice similar to Alexa or Siri, asking her to conjure up his memories. The voice of his mother describes his birth, his delivery with the umbilical cord around his neck. His inability to ‘fit in’ and his request to be removed from school before he suffers the shame of being expelled. He emerges dressed quite casually, and we are off on his journey of self discovery.
This is the start of a performance beyond the confines of conventional music theatre. Marv Radio is a hip-hop and rap artist, a beatbox voice performer, and the piece is intensely personal.
His warm personality and natural stage presence enfold us in his journey to South America with a woman whom he hopes to have a relationship with, climbing several mountains, and falling off them.
Of a recovery aided by plants with magical healing powers, and the discovery that he has survived a fractured spine. Of surviving a suicide attempt. It is the trip that gives the impetus to his work as a healer, voice therapist, educator, musician.
He sings, he dazzles us with vocal gymnastics. At the end of his journey we experience his beatboxing, looping his voice, taping and replaying it in layers of musical sound.
With a genesis at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Mantra is still very much a work in progress, and a fascinating one. I longed for it to be a piece of immersive interactive theatre. Not to just be an onlooking audience member but to physically share the experience of his journey.
Marv is an instinctive, daring, actor/performer. It will be interesting to see where his journeying leads him. And where he takes us on the way, if we allow him to.
Leon Ferguson
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