He was Mark…

On Friday I was lucky to see the penultimate performance of “I Am Mark” a contemporary theatre piece created and performed by Applecart Live.

Taking the Bible’s book of Mark as it’s text, they play with its context, themes and stories, rendering it in distinctive layered ways using new imagery and language.

They use characters and monologue, humour and tension, words and imagery, and they very effectively wrap the scenes in effectual song and sound.

All four of the cast were strong yet sympathetic and relayed powerful yet real performances. Both action and musical performances were extremely accomplished yet this talent did not detract from the text being shared.

In the story we hear of ‘The Crowd Gatherer’ sharing subversive truths and disturbing the political and religious powers. We hear “Change your thinking”, “close the distance”, there is “Deep Wisdom”, as the script employs new terminology in place of loaded traditional terms. The baggage of the 2000 year old story is lightened and indeed enlightened.

It’s a rich multilayered experience that left me thinking about glimpsed importance and feeling splashes of hope. Throughout, the drama was punctuated by a prospect of terror. A vignette from existent 🙂 demons humorously and sharply refocuses a perspective of evil. The final scene quenched the assault of query and troubled souls with… something special.. ? humanity? hope? …poured from a jar, an imagined intimate interaction with the audience.

There was a brief hiatus when nothing happened…

When Applecart offer this again, or indeed something new, I recommend keeping an eye our for them!

A doodle of mine…