Mnemonic

 

Youngest sister generously treated me to attend with her at  the matinee of the re-written and up-dated play Mnemonic, at the Olivier Theatre, whilst mrs maytrees was enjoying lunch away with maytrees ma and min.

Speaking of lunch, I tried for the first time in a while, dining in the re-vamped dining rooms at the National Theatre or is it now called The Royal National Theatre? Excellent but not inexpensive, smoked salmon beigal with two salads. Their large re-usable water plastic water mugs were useful to fill up at a no-cost water station. 

As it happens, Oreo presumably as a marketing gimmick, were giving away their ice cream sandwiches at Waterloo station so I 'enjoyed' my sweet first  enroute to the Theatre. 

The play itself was not entirely my cup of tea though was acted well by the Complicité company. There was not an empty seat in the large Olivier Theatre at the NT and my sister had been fortunate to obtain two tickets shortly after they first went on sale some weeks ago.

The plot of mnemonic  such as it seemed to me to be, revolved around the actual and real discovery in the Alps, of a frozen more or less intact body of a man who had died some 5,000 years ago probably in a battle of some kind. The actor playing the part of the frozen man, who was I believe Khalid Abdalla,  in my view could in the play have been dressed in white but the Company instead had him acting naked throughout most of the production which might not have been easy for him. His talk (fully clothed) at the commencement of the play was interesting and well done however.

He wore a dressing gown after the conclusion of the play  at the curtain calls before the audience. Interestingly, the audience was asked to don eye masks for a section of the play and to ensure that mobile phones were not only switched off but placed inside special bags provided by the theatre.

Unusually in my experience, the programme was a very full and good read with reflections on memory prompted by the play, first written I believe in Austria some twenty five years ago. I can do little better therefore than to quote from a section written by Dr. Daphna Shohamy reflecting on the rolle of memory:

"...Reflecting on 25 years of scentific inquiry, the questions of origin explored by Mnemonic seem to have foreshadowed future discoveries in science. An iceman appears from thousands of years ago; a man searches for his lover; a woman searches for her long-lost father. Fragments of stories collide across time and space..."

At times  the play was difficult to follow, not helped by the absence of an interval during which one could have discussed scenes and taken refreshment but it was  a boost to  the intellects of the audience or at least hopefully of my own.

Many thanks to youngest sister for an informative and enjoyable matinee, which was much appreciated.