I'm almost always up for something unusual in the theatre so when Claire invited a number of us to accompany her to The Little Match Girl Passion at the Traverse, described as a combination of Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Match Girl and Bach's St Mathew Passion, my hand went up straight away.

In the event the invitor withdrew and the other invitees declined so I was alone (apart from the multitude of culture vultures behind me, for I was in the front row) in Traverse One last night for this spectacle.

A dimly lit area whose floorcloth of white tiles each decorated with a black fleur de lis (if memory serves) on which lay a randomly (or maybe carefully) strewn cable of linked light bulbs that glowed dull yellow presented itself on entry to the theatre.  Behind, a dull reddish wall bearing a couple of shelves strewn with unidentifiable bric a brac, above which a screen.  Standing right centre a low music stand, a stool and bathed in a gentle light resting on the stool a cello.

Fade to black and enter the cellist dressed in a mildly military looking silver buttoned grey blue coat to perform the curtain raiser or companion piece, The World To Come. He played for twenty five minutes or so while swirls in various shades of grey appeared on the screen behind him.  It was not quite a cloudscape nor yet a brain activity scan but somewhere in between.  The music was mournful and as I trudged up the staircase at the interval I thought that if that is the world to come I am not too anxious to be here when it arrives.

Everyone trudged up the stairs in fact because Theatre Cryptic whose work it was wanted the auditorium to be empty while they changed the set. I suppose they felt that the impact would be lessened were we to have seen it put together.  

It was not that different in fact.  The screen had gone and a dark void took its place.  The wall now had a flame relief that I don't think had been there before and a higher lighting level allowed us to see that the bric a brac consisted of vaguely scientific Victorian odds and ends; glass vessels, stuffed animal bits, animal skulls.....

That science like feel was echoed in the objects on a desk left centre on which stood also a little xylophone and music stand.  Up right by the wall was a big drum mounted horizontally on a wheeled frame and on the opposite side a set of tubular bells almost off-stage.

The piece opened with the other three actors/singers lined up behind the bass who was poised to whack the big drum, which he did.  They were all dressed in what I would loosely describe as early Victorian outfits though the mezzo's crinoline was drawn up at the front to reveal her garter and drawers in a manner that I am sure would have been deprecated then and the reason for which escaped me.

They sang, moved languidly here and there, sat, stood, grouped, ungrouped.  They played the bells, the xylophone, a chinese bowl, the big drum, what seemed to be a bicycle bell but which probably has a pukka musical name and a set of something or other.  They never smiled, but given that the libretto told the sorry tale of a little girl wandering barefoot in the snow and freezing to death that's hardly surprising. 

They never acknowledged one another nor the audience nor the white clad young woman in the void above, the eponymous match girl, who throughout threw herself hither and thither, whirled, bounced and walked about presumably in anguish.

It was beautifully done, beautifully sung, beautifully set and lit and well deserved the long appreciative silence and subsequent enthusiastic applause that greeted the final blackout.  It made the very pleasant modern dance performance that I had seen at the Festival Theatre the previous evening seem somewhat run of the mill. 

But it was weird.