“An important and powerful skewering of toxic masculinity”
Two young men play something that looks a lot like football as the crowd sits down in the circle of chairs surrounding the stage. The floor is marked to resemble a school gym, various circles and dotted lines laid out to vaguely resemble the courts of various sports. There’s one big target in the middle where the rest of the men sit, looking out at the crowd that watches them, too close not to notice the minutiae of their actions.
This imagery of panoptic viewing is deployed frequently throughout the performance, the word ‘panopticon’ is even directly stated towards the latter half of the show. The performers take turns finding themselves in the centre of the target, surrounded by the other men as well as the audience, who judge the man in the centre and the men who are judging him. In one particularly striking moment three of the older men form a protective barrier around three of the boys, while the remaining man and boy circle them, berating and filming them respectively. The footage from the selfie-stick mounted phone – which is used various times throughout the performance – appears projected onto the inside of two football goals at either end of the stage.
It’s in this depiction of layered voyeurism that we find the central thesis of Wee Man – that men are held to unfair, contradictory, and confusing standards that echo down the generations in a self-perpetuating spiral. To properly convey such a clear and important message in an hour long dance performance is a monumental achievement. Natasha Gilmore’s choreography tells a story that manages to be clear and engaging without ever veering into feeling too obvious or heavy-handed. In several sequences, including the opening dance, the older and younger men are paired off in mesmerising sequences that go from violent to supportive to competitive to playful – before going all the way back again, wordlessly and expertly conveying the extremely complex culture of masculinity.
Among this the stand-out star is Leo Convey, who manages to smoothly contort his body in ways that make even the most complex dance sequences appear easy and natural, while also clearly portraying a painful emotional complexity. His talents clearly don’t go unnoticed as he’s singled out twice to be the man dancing alone in the middle of the circle.
Dance, of course, isn’t the only method Wee Man uses to deliver its message, where the show begins to fall slightly short is in its dialogue sections. The performances themselves are perfectly good, and these sections are where the show best demonstrates its observational comedy – there were a lot of laughs for a line that singles out neon socks as the only acceptable way for a man to express himself. However, while the performers are talking their words are projected (sometimes alongside video feed) inside the aforementioned football goals. While this is a nice thought towards accessibility, the way that it’s executed could use some work. I noticed several instances where the words on the screen were going either too fast or too slow, and a couple of times the words that were being said wouldn’t quite match the words on screen. Rather than being helpful this only proves to be distracting, especially considering that the majority of the audience will have to crane their neck away from the main action to look at one end of the stage.
All in all, this is only a minor issue in an otherwise exceptional and important show.
Wee Man will be going on tour to Lanterhouse Cumbernauld on Saturday 31st May at 7pm and Johnstone Town Hall on Friday 13th June at 7pm. It will then transfer to Assembly at Dance Base as part of Edinburgh Festival Fringe from Tuesday 5 – Sunday 17 August at 7pm.