Within Range

Taking place after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, this story of love torn apart by a poisonous, infected state could be set anywhere struggling in the grip of a dictatorship. Gestapo and Stasi stalk the streets in a distinct style emulated throughout this moving and disturbing hour, both darkly funny and crushingly powerful.

As the action unfolds, the familiar tropes of the world of state informants flash up on a screen behind the performers. Entrapment. Sleep Deprivation. State-approved leisure activities. The Judas Kiss. All scenes swing between the naturalistic and the symbolic, emphasised by choreographed limp arms and helplessness. The women are dolls, tossed about by an invisible, all-pervading force demanding the same questions over and over, threatening torture regardless of the answers. They writhe and convulse in unison, locked up and forced to dance to the throbbing beat of the state. Whistling a tune while hanging up washing is pounced upon by the beige trench-coated informants and sent hurtling towards a genuinely heartbreaking finale, leaving the silent audience reeling. 

Horror is realised with the simplest of props—clever lighting, a thudding soundtrack and buckets of water—as those at the mercy of the state move with their torturers in a dreamlike world brought crashing to reality when the music stops and the victim is tossed aside like a broken toy, shivering. The core of the story—a doomed relationship—becomes a tragedy almost impossible to watch in what is, overall, a stunning achievement. It's everything physical theatre should be.