It’s been a long wait. Message in a Bottle was scheduled to be staged at The Lowry just before the first COVID lockdown, and we all know what happened next. Talk about sending an SOS to the world.
It is the nature of nuclear families to explode—children choose to fly the parental nest. In the case of village of Bebko, the choice is imposed when an invading force breaks up a family and an entire community. Message in a Bottle falls neatly into two acts: in the first, members of a community are displaced by a hostile force, and in the second, three exiled siblings try to cope with the aftermath. One is able to integrate into another culture but suffers survivor’s guilt and concern about loss of identity, another unexpectedly finds his true sexuality, while the third tries to help his wife come to terms with the sacrifice she made to shield others.
The score by Sting has been arranged by Alex Lacamoire so as to not only add a hip hop tone but also a harder, more dramatic edge. The dance often mirrors the lyrics of the songs in a literal manner. "Every Breath You Take" and "Roxanne" are staged with the family under close surveillance in a detention centre and staggering around the red-light district.
Yet director Kate Prince is not intimated by the famous songs and is willing to take a cheeky approach to their use. “Don't Stand So Close to Me" shifts from being about an inappropriate teacher-pupil relationship into an oppressive depiction of sexual harassment. "Fields of Gold" seems to be wasted with just a short extract in the first act but is reprised in full for a superb dance duet in the second act.
The choreography by Prince is restless and demanding. It is not uncommon for more than one style of dance to take place in single scene. While a breakdance solo occurs on one part of the stage, acrobatic summersaults take place elsewhere. It adds to the sense of urgency, trying to squeeze in as much as possible before an interruption or an enforced cessation.
The emphasis throughout is, however, on storytelling. The dancers swaying desperately in unison conveys the panic of migrants at sea trapped on an inadequate vessel, or simply seated and interacting as a family. Dance often uses physical movement to convey a sense of freedom, but the tightly controlled choreography in Message in a Bottle instead offers catharsis and the simple triumph of survival.
The storytelling is not limited to the dancing, with Ben Stones’s set and Andrzej Goulding’s video designs making vital contributions. From the start, there is an ominous sense of time running out as sand from a gigantic egg timer pours out onto the stage. The escapees seem to have reached a place of safety, only for the lights to rise gradually revealing they are facing the barbed wire of a detention centre in the pouring rain.
Dark, demanding and completely intoxicating, Message in a Bottle is well worth the wait.