Belfast International Arts Festival 2024: Aurora

Meghan Tyler in Aurora. Photo, Ciaran Bagnall

**

Cass feels connected to the lonely tree. Both the book she read with her mother as a child and the actual tree her mother claimed inspired the story. When gold is discovered in Ireland Cass senses the tree might well be in danger. Chaining herself to its trunk she sets up a livestream as a challenge to the money grubbing company Golden Shire who are looking to mine the area. The company her brother Conn now works for. Aided by their childhood friend, Drew, and a talking Anarcho-communist badger, Cass dishes out more spin than an attack of vertigo. Dominic Montague’s Aurora trying to sell you a three legged theatrical horse, making claims that almost sound credible. Like it can run faster for being lighter without the extra leg. Or that Aurora is a modern myth. Or that working in conjunction with the University of Ulster’s School of Art it looks to marry the world of gaming and animation with theatre. None of which is remotely true, even as, theatrically, there's moments to admire.

Take myth. A cursory glance at John Moriarty, Joseph Campbell, Irish, Greek or Norse legends sees all speak of patterns, of journeys, of trials and transformations. Cass, tied to the tree, goes nowhere, does nothing transformative only talk incessantly from her superior, self aware heights. No mythic journey here, not even a fairy tale’s worth, just a half baked children’s story hidden behind some grown up curses. One in which endlessly dull diatribes on the artificial value we place on gold is punctured by lame jokes and the bare bones of a story, one easing towards a Hallmark ever after full of self-vindication.

Meghan Tyler and Thomas Finnegan in Aurora. Photo Ciaran Bagnall

As for the interface of gaming, animation and theatre, you wonder if anyone involved had ever played a game? Been on a simulation ride? Seen visual projections at theme parks and at festivals? What’s offered, graphically, looking passable at best, as in the final image. More often, like the foul mouthed badger, it’s cringingly embarrassing. Enough to make a Punch and Judy puppet look like a technical advancement. Graphics and animation so far below pre-alpha levels they make retro look modern. Meanwhile story, built on an interrogation device, lectures us on the environment and how we’re all made of stardust. The beauty of science connecting us all. Then there’s magical trees. How science equates with magical trees is anyone’s guess.

Fortunately Emma Jordan keeps pace peppering along and Ciaran Bagnall’s set, unlike graphics, is visually impressive. Jordan also makes some brilliant casting decisions. Meghan Tyler proving herself a gifted storyteller; her gutsy Pippi Longstocking styled character just adorable as she regales. Tyler could recite a phone directory and make it invigorating. Thomas Finnegan’s wild man Drew and Conor O’Donnell’s corporate Conn also turn in sterling performances. But Tyler has that star quality that magnetise and seduces. In the end, live visceral bodies and physical staging hold the centre. Graphics adding too little whilst claiming too much.

Thomas Finnegan and Meghan Tyler in Aurora. Photo Ciaran Bagnall

There’s no doubt Montague is sincere and his concerns genuine, but I have to call emperors new clothes here. Sincerity is an empty virtue. The audience were promised a new myth, yet Aurora barely rises to the level of fable. Promised explorations at the interface of theatre, gaming and animation, yet visually it looks thirty years out of date for eighty nine of its ninety minutes. Falling painfully short of its own ambitions, Aurora doesn’t deliver on its promises. Indeed, if saving the environment means listening to more of Cass’s juvenile ruminations, you might well wish they’d hurry on the Apocalypse. Only that would mean the end of Tyler. And that’s not good. When it comes to unforced talent and presence, Tyler’s in a league of her own.

Aurora by Dominic Montague, presented by Prime Cut Productions, runs at The MAC as part of Belfast International Arts Festival 2024 until November 2.

For more information visit Belfast International Arts Festival 2024 or The MAC