Golem

A couple of years ago, I attended a seminar by 1927 theatre company at the National Theatre. They create what might be called mixed media theatre: live acting and music against a background of hand-painted animation and claymation. Interaction between performers and projected animation - for example, an actor waters a plant which then, in projection, blossoms -  requires precise spacing and timing. A curious mixture of hi-tech and play, creating a sense of wonder. I was intrigued by the workshop and so was delighted when I had a chance to see the 1927 show Golem on tour at the Nuffield, Southampton.

A Golem, in Jewish folklore, is a being created entirely from inanimate matter - claymation on a mythical level. The show uses the idea to create a fable about our relationship with helpful artificial gadgets, which soon come to dominate us: another variation on the Frankenstein story.  Tied into this was a theatrical exploration of the corrupting effects of materialism and the culture's injunction to be forever buying into the latest brand: 'Keep up with the times, or you'll be left behind' repeated Golem's mellifluous voice (oddly, it's the exact same voice that tells me all my Tesco points add up). Human relations are sacrificed in the continued urge to look after number one. Human beings are simply marks for the corporations who use the Golem to market their products.

All of which makes it sound preachy. But Golem is a captivating experience, far too lively to become solemn, and often humorous. The animation, inflected by a Weimar Expressionist aesthetic, took us to a distant place which provided a distorted reflection of our own world. The acting style drew on silent cinema's language of gestures and heavy expressions, with striking wardrobe design to match: in his golem-induced quest to look good, the main character, Robbie, initially a shy nerd, ends up looking like a spaceman. But his ascent of fashion is at the cost of rejecting a woman, and the feelings that went with that relationship. Cartoon-style voices, often following exactly marked rhythms, further heighten the effect.

As the show progresses, Golem goes through rebrands, shaping human needs to corporate ends, until there is nothing left of us. The show felt like a dream, mixing the grotesque (the sleazy dance club) and the satirical with wildly inventive imagery (I loved the sequence of the Golem factory), leading us to a terrifying concluding vision of a posthuman world, where man and golem seem to have merged. The servant becomes the master, the inanimate clay has now sucked the soul out of all of us. A technologically masterful show about the dangers of technology.