THEATRE REVIEW: Us/Them ★★★★★

Us/ Them
The National Theatre, London
Thursday 16th February 2017

Based on the September 2004 shootings at School Number One in Beslan, Russia, Us/Them is an exploration from BRONKS, a Brussels based theatre house which produces theatre for young audiences, and is performed by Gytha Parmentier and Roman Van Houtven, and they give an account of the mass shooting which took place over two days through the eyes of the children who were kept captive.

This production started out with Gytha and Roman entering the space to draw the outline of the school through an eagle-eyed look at the facilities in the building, as well as detailing the town of Beslan. The feel of this sequence instantly is connecting the audience and the performers because of the intensity of the subject; we all know what this piece is going to be tackling, but through the comedic effect of the performers acting like children through the use of movement and speech, where they are talking over each other, trying to fight for their voice to be heard and their bodies to be seen, you are relaxed as both Gytha and Roman embody the characteristics and mannerisms that a child possesses.

You could easily describe this piece as a recollection of the tragedy through the eyes of the children that is playful, as both performers run around the stage hooking up endless string around the stage, which is ultimately representing the wires to which the terrorists have used to detonate a bomb in the middle of the gymnasium, but it is also incredibly moving as we we hear the hallucinations of the children such as a giraffe taking a girl up through the sky to represent her death, or the sequence where 'special forces’ come down from the ceiling to the sound of the familiar Mission Impossible title music, which makes you realise that to these children they are not fully aware of the danger to which they are in. As the numbers of the survivors drop through the piece, this becomes even more poignant and powerful, and the sequence where we hear of 'The changing of the guard’ becomes all too real.

I found this production to be extremely engaging and thought-provoking, leading me to research more into this terrorist attack having now come away from such a powerful experience!