Review: 'Hopes, Dreams, Perditions'

This successful production begins with soft, surreal motifs, and ends with a hard-edged statement of reality. Along the way, the actors show a clear commitment to their parts and to the production.
We begin with a light blur of smoke-machine haze, accompanied by a Maori welcome, chanted against a backdrop of fluffy white good weather clouds floating in pellucid blue. At centre back gapes the stage entrance. At stage right a man sits in a cage, like a sacrificial victim ready for public execution in some not-much earlier part of our history.
This moves into a series of small set-pieces, each relatively independent of each other but building to the final shape.
The style is clear and accessible, at times, almost cartoon-like in logic, particularly the costuming. There is also a clear homage to theatre art movements: The result is a collage; a faceted display of performances.
Supporting the style is an eclectic and effective selection of music snippets, emotion symbols sourced from around the world in time and place.
Many of the performances have moments of magic, due to the performers' concentration and sympathetic direction which makes the most of their abilities.
A herald in camouflage fatigues and Jacobean ruff takes centre stage for each scene's opening with announcement and placard of a Shakespearean quote, adding an element of inevitable fate. The impact of fate is made large in the final scene which takes a turn on two wheels from surreal fun into revolutionary solidarity and refusal to submit to abuse.