Shibboleth, a young company with one foot in Belfast and the other in Paris, have devised this delicate delight, which draws inspiration from the paintings of Marc Chagall, an eclectic music score (Mededski, Manu Chao, Mogwai, Rococco Rot, to name but a few) and a confident, contemporary fluidity of physical expression.
"Him" loves "her" and "her" loves "him", but conflicts of dream and reality, flight and fear intervene. The central motif is flight. "Him's" hide-and-seek games lead him to the rooftop, where he starts to transmogrify to winged creature with an aspiration to soar. "Her" is left bereft below, awaiting the return of her child/man.
"It's a bit like being with a child", she repeatedly maintains, but as his plumage spreads he becomes totally invisible and inaccessible. Her isolation becomes despair with the unbearable tension of breakdown.
The delicacy and delight reside in the sense of movement and theatrical moment. The simplest of objects - table, bowl, sugar cubes, pillow - are invested with potency. The flavour is European, specifically French. The action only plunges to the undesirable when they resort to words. They are just not good with words and the third figure, the strident and unfunny Birdman, is from another play, sadly at odds with the tender nuances and abiding sense of magic.