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The Wire – May 2020

SWEET TOOTH at Borealis, Bergen – Norway

Robert Barry

“With a harrowingly physical performance from Mitchener, tightly woven displays of virtuosity from the group, and little more than the highly evocative lighting to set the scene, it is like watching an exorcism: the demon cast out is history.”

Having missed Elaine Mitchener’s experimental music theatre piece SWEET TOOTH during its UK run in 2018, I am pleased to catch it here at the century-old Bergen Internasjonale Kultursenter. Based on extensive research into the transatlantic slave trade, the horrors of the middle passage and the West Indian sugar trade, the work features, alongside Mitchener herself, a group consisting of British improvisors Sylvia Hallett, Mark Sanders and Jason Yarde. Given its personnel, I was expecting it to be accomplished. What I wasn’t prepared for was how emotionally wrenching it is. As it comes to an end and the applause starts, I suddenly realise I haven’t taken a breath in several minutes. With a harrowingly physical performance from Mitchener, tightly woven displays of virtuosity from the group, and little more than the highly evocative lighting to set the scene, it is like watching an exorcism: the demon cast out is history.

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