Tide Machine - Kirkcudbright 11pm (ish) 2.07.11

A fair gang of us decamped from the Commonty Summer Gathering and made our way to Kirkcudbright to see the new incarnation of Oceanallover's Tide Machine. We swelled an already impressive crowd who waited expectantly in front of the shiny, new and very impressive Tide Machine performance structure. Everything has its place in an Oceanallover performance and waiting is no exception....further heightened by Mark Zygadlo's announcement that the unusually high pressure was delaying the rising tide. This was the cue for much dusting off of Standard Grade Geography in the audience and scuttling about on the Tide Machine. Eventually two 'rude mechanical' characters appeared and began to tend to the motions of the machine....surely 'something' was happening. Suddenly there were screams and gales of laughter from the audience above us on the bank - then nothing...then more screams and suddenly fabulous creatures were amongst us...slowly making there way through the crowd towards the Tide Machine. The costumes were exceptional (even by Oceanallover's standards)...for me, Alex Rigg's costumes are one of the places where all of his very diverse talents come together most powerfully - they are world-class (apologies to all for not having better photographs of the costumes - I'm sure others will appear elsewhere....Zvonko?)

'Audience 1' at Kirkcudbright

It was immediately clear that this audience was not going to stand passively by...but there were definitely two audiences in Kbt on Saturday - an older one that was revelling in being so close to such a full-on theatrical performance and a younger one who were intent on meeting the 'things' head-on.  The performers were clearly charged up by the energy of the interaction and I suddenly found myself rushing about from one end of the harbour to the other - not wanting to miss any of this action.

'Audience 2' at Kirkcudbright

The wholly live quality of the action was compelling and whilst the choreography of the more 'staged' action on the Tide Machine was quite beautiful I missed the anarchy of the work amongst the audience - I wondered afterwards if this could have been partly to do with the switch to recorded music..which while fine in its content lacked something of the 'in the moment' quality of the rest of the event by not being performed live?

The Tide Machine structure with performers and audience

I like the fact that the Tide Machine structure forms a focal point for the action - but it's very form builds a massive expectation of how it might contribute to the action - it remains uncertain just what that contribution is - my suspicion is that as the tour moves on the Machine will become more fully part of the cast and the performers will feel more comfortable about pulling and pushing a mechanism that has obviously been a labour of love to construct and is probably currently regarded perhaps more as something vulnerable on a workbench rather than an active element in a street performance.

The overall idea that we are all beings that are subject to the powerful unseen forces of gravity and tide - an idea brought to life by a machine and a group of creatures who feel and respond to those forces utterly - is a potent and important one to unleash upon a group of unsuspecting humans caught up in the nets of everyday life. This is one of the essences of the Oceanallover - something has happened...we have been part of it...no one is quite sure what is was or exactly how we have been effected by it - but we have all been effected. We have all shared a momentary suspension of 'normality' ...surely one of the key qualities of art.

Review by Matt Baker