Films are canned events, they take place in the past. Plays are like living organisms, they inhabit the present. Films deal primarily in pictures, theatre in words. Theatre is ancient, film modern. Film is technical, analytic, theatre concerned with psychology and emotion. Like two embattled siblings film and theatre coexist as antithetical art forms - defined by their differences. With scant acknowledgement of this conventional wisdom Katie Mitchell's 'some trace of her', inspired by Dostoevsky's 'The Idiot', yokes together these old adversaries to create a performance as compelling, febrile, humane and run through with white hot intensity as the Russian masters novel. And it scarcely matters if it is more theatre or more film. What Mitchell is after is a kind of architecture of art - a reminder of the human hand behind every act of creation.
       High above the stage hangs the screen, like some sacred altarpiece, at which we, the spectators, are obliged to look up - while her protagonists' larger-than-life, anguished faces stare down - dual images of celebrity and martyrdom. Below scatter her actors, heaving cables and cameras, intent on setting up each new scene, slaves to the exigencies of time and technology. But also, at times, like children playing a dressing up game - admiring themselves in front of the mirror. In Dostoevsky's brutal game of love, two men's desire for the same woman destroys her and them. Perspectives shift, moods change, chance determines outcomes. The fragility of human experience, the broad subject of this piece, is contained in one central image of a precious vase set spinning, falling through space, and shattering into pieces. As if to ask what is the meaning of these parts we are left with?
       Part of the fun of this production is that it shows, in anatomised form, how economically filmic special effects can be created. The sounds of rain falling, glasses tinkling, horses hooves all seem to emanate from the same magic-box of tricks trod underfoot. And it is revealing to see, simultaneously, how differently the two forms translate inner states of mind - how different an actor's expression looks, writ large, on screen. Ben Whishaw's face is too expressive, almost, for the subtlety of film and the scrutiny of the camera. Whilst the cold beauty of the actress playing Nastasya, -her contours perfect, like a unshaded outline - can take on an almost cartoonish aspect of terror.
       Disordered, unclassifiable, as this production may be it fulfils the central criterion of artistic endeavour. It seeks to reach out to and engage with a whole range of human interactions. Mitchell creates a dialogue between theatre and film and in doing so she reminds us how much the two have in common. Both are collaborative arts. Both conjure worlds in which illusions are created and the real is laid bare.
Suzie Mackenzie