‘[Memorial]... contains a passion and majesty that is transporting, and transcendent.’ ★★★★★ The Guardian (UK)
‘Spoken word, lighting and music combine in perfect synergy to imbue the production with poignancy. Morse’s voice, Oswald’s words, Jocelyn Pook’s haunting musical compositions and the astonishing voices of the singers make for an exquisite study of grief.’ ★★★★★ The Guardian (UK)
‘a transcendent piece of theatre’ ★★★★★ The Stage (UK)
‘At the heart of this performance is the chronicler, the great Australian actor Helen Morse, who carries the narrative alone for nearly two hours. She’s a small, determined figure dressed in a patchwork burgundy velvet dress: her strong voice brims with anger and pity, then softens with love as she tells everyday stories of these men, be they humble shepherds or rich merchants, and the families they have left behind.’ ★★★★★ The Stage (UK)
‘Never has Homer’s Iliad seemed less like a dusty schoolbook text than in this searing ‘excavation’ by poet Alice Oswald, dramatized so effectively by Australian director Chris Drummond and Brink Productions.’ ★★★★★ The Stage (UK)
‘Jocelyn Pook’s score is full of thrilling sonorities, sometimes ecclesiastically ritualistic it seems to draw on English folk-song, Cycladic dances, Pontic rhythms, tinkling bells, a richness of evocative sounds sometimes strange sometimes seeming very familiar. It is music you want to hear again, the players (who include Pook herself) make it memorable and Morse’s performance is a tour de force and the chorus, drawn from choirs across London, deliver a dedication and emotional concentration that hugely contributes to the success of this compelling stage work.’ The British Theatre Guide
‘With folk elements from Macedonia and Bulgaria adding distinctive local flavour, Pook’s score is richly atmospheric while evoking a timeless quality. In places there’s a clear debt to Philip-Glass-like minimalism, while in one touching sequence the entire company pairs off into couples for something rather more period-specific in the form of an old-fashioned waltz.’ ★★★★ Financial Times (UK)
‘Chris Drummond’s staging and Yaron Lifschitz’s movement maintain a simplicity that allows the heightened poetry of the material to speak for itself. Renate Henschke’s costumes generally convey present-day informality — except for one unforgettable moment around the evening’s midpoint when soldiers in first world war uniforms briefly infiltrate the ranks of the other performers before almost instantaneously vanishing.’ ★★★★ Financial Times (UK)
‘Memorial is a shattering excavation of the scars of war through poetry, dance and mind-blowing score’ The Conversation (Australia)
‘The brilliance of Oswald’s writing lies in its combination of unrelenting singular focus with endless poetic invention’ The Conversation (Australia)
‘Pook’s score is a golden stream of soft, devastating sadness: the sinuous reediness of oboe, shawm and clarinet; the pong and chime of bells; the wail and keen of counter tenor and Bulgarian and Macedonian vocals. The musicians are suspended on an illuminated bridge above the stage, like demi-gods. At its most climactic, Memorial’s music is almost literally mind-blowing.’ The Conversation (Australia)
‘In bringing this piece into existence, director Chris Drummond shows two things. First, that his ability to handle the outsize tools of epic performance, previously on show in Night Letters and When the Rain Stops Falling, is now approaching the definitive. Second, that his interest in the human condition, in vulnerability, in drama, remains squarely at the centre of his vision.’ The Conversation (Australia)
‘Helen Morse is magnificent. Drummond has astutely recognized the dramatic strength of the poet’s text and found an outstanding actor to deliver it. Morse is pitch-perfect. Droll, laconic, fierce, never sentimental, she effortlessly inhabits this lithe, earthy poetry, giving each line clarity, each name its sombre due. Dressed in a rough-spun mulberry red patchwork shift, she is diminutive in contrast to the chorus but compelling as the narrator, aghast at what she describes, but unflinching witness to this bright unbearable reality.’ The Australian
‘Memorial is a deeply moving piece of theatre with a sublime score… the cumulative effect of the list of dying warriors is a powerful statement about the tragic waste of life. The ending, as all the performers sing “thousands of leaves” over and over in soaring harmonies (having compared thousands of leaves to thousands of bodies) is unutterably moving and tears slid down faces all over the auditorium.’ Limelight Magazine (Australia)
‘What is being worshipped in this extraordinary stage adaptation of the poem is life itself.’ Stage Noise (Australia)
‘There aren’t enough superlatives with which to crown this Adelaide Festival production. It creates for its audience one of those lifetime experiences, all at once beautiful, transcending, sensual, original and relevant.’ Barefoot Review (Australia)
‘Cleverly choreographed by Yaron Lifschitz, artistic director of Queensland’s Circa, the chorus is an almost continual presence on the stage, variously representing humanity and changing landscapes as the poem move through space and time.’ Indaily (Australia)
‘Set high above the stage where you imagine the gods would sit, a row of musicians and singers give life to an absolutely exquisite aural landscape, composed by multi-awarding composer Jocelyn Pook.’ Indaily (Australia)
‘The three key elements – Pook’s score, the huge human chorus and Oswald’s powerful imagery given voice by Morse – combine to create an insightful and intense requiem to all those whose lives have been affected by the immeasurable tragedy and senselessness of war.’ Indaily (Australia)
