The Wedding, Gecko (2022) review ★★★★★

Frankly, most of Gecko’s The Wedding is incomprehensible. There are two ways of withstanding its 80-minute duration: let it all wash over you, or go with the flow and enjoy the sheer energy it brings to the stage and some of its more memorable images. I confess throughout I hovered between the two.

The concept, as explained by Gecko artistic director Amit Lahav, is that we’re all married to society by virtue of the binding commitments we make to belong and function within the group.

So, extravagant wedding dresses for both men and women, confetti and wedding ceremonies play a central role in the proceedings. Once each performer has worn their dress and gone through a boisterous ceremony, they are given a red briefcase and off they go to join society.

It’s like a rebirth. Performers wearing only their underwear burst onto the stage by sliding out of a tube onto a mound of soft toys. They are welcomed by a woman in a severe two-piece suit clutching a clipboard and speaking in an indistinct language.

She ushers them into their wedding ceremonies, riotous affairs inspired, in one case, by Jewish rites, in another by Balkan custom.

Don’t, however, expect this to evolve into a cohesive narrative, or even a narrative at all. Anarchy is the name of the game translated into the kind of intensely physical theatre that Gecko specialises in, which can’t easily be pigeonholed.

Among diversions from the mainstream – if indeed there is one! – is a long sequence where a down-on-his-luck man emerges from a battered old suitcase and starts a long conversation with the audience in Spanish. The suitcase, he tells us, is his home. His name is Patxo and he lives there with his wife, his uncle and his brother, all of whom duly emerge after him.

If you don’t understand Spanish, tough; maybe you’ll understand some of the multiple foreign languages in which various members of the nine-strong cast address us. If you don’t understand any of them, perhaps it doesn’t matter, as judging by the languages I understood, none of it is germane to anything like a plot.

The sound score comprises original music written by Dave Price (The Mother, Carmen) and snatches from well-known operas.

Towards the end we are in a kind of office, where all these people are semi-imprisoned, stressed and unhappy. As dissolves, they come downstage, sit on a line of chairs and start a vigorous episode of rhythmic clapping and stomping. It’s as if they’ve released themselves from the servitude of the wedding, thereby acquiring joyous individuality.

At least, I think that’s what it was.

Age Guidance: 14+
Post-show talk: Thursday 9 June, free to same-day ticket holders (BSL-interpreted).