The Dream of Sancho

I am trying to find the words to describe a piece of theatre that used almost none at all. I will begin by saying this show was the most beautiful piece of art I have seen in a long time, hoping that you’ll excuse my clumsy attempts to explain it.

We arrived just before the show began and were led into a cobbled courtyard that felt completely hidden, though we could hear the music from a nearby club. We took our seats under the open sky, completely surrounded by stone-built five-storey Edinburgh buildings.

While we waited for the show to begin, we were entertained by what we used to call ‘animation’ in the circus – meaning performers in costume and in character, out interacting with the audience.

And then the show began, and I was completely enchanted.

The Dream of Sancho is a piece of physical theatre. I have an unfortunate tendency to dismiss physical theatre as pretentious, or to lump it in with dance. But this show was neither. There were a handful of spoken phrases, but the rest of the story was told purely through movement. Not mime, just movement.

Inspired by Cervantes’ Don Quixote, the loose story is of a man, trapped in the 9-to-5 grind, who has forgotten that in another life he was Don Quixote. Sancho finds him when he falls asleep at his desk, and he begins to remember.

Some imagery I got, some I didn’t, but the intellectual story was completely irrelevant. It was the experience that was important.

The ‘staging’ of the show was brilliant. It incorporated the most wonderful use of projection I have ever seen. The whole wall of one of the buildings became a canvas, extending the story that was told by the bodies moving on the cobblestone. And the projection incorporated the stonework, the windows. Such excellent use of the space.

Their props were minimal – a silver hoop, pairs of shoes, flowers, a multitude of umbrellas – but so effective. Lifting the shoes off the ground let characters take flight among the projected clouds. Planting flowers between the cobblestones created a beautiful garden.

Their use of light was especially skilled. At the opening of the show, a young woman was just caught in a crossbeam, causing her yellow umbrella to glow. Lights close to the ground gave the cobbles dimension and texture and brought the flowers to life.

Every single aspect of this show was perfect. I was fascinated, and enchanted, and all those things. I keep saying, it made my soul happy. It lasted for an hour and fifteen minutes and I didn’t want it to end.

There were only a couple of dozen people in the audience at a venue that could probably seat ten times that. It’s absolutely criminal that this show isn’t sold out every night. I’ve been telling everyone to go.