Foehn Effect

The Foehn effect—a meteorological phenomenon resulting in a hot dry wind—has a lot to answer for. According to this bleak and unapolagetically gruelling monologue, the intense heat has been known to agitate people to such a degree that it's often taken into consideration by the courts when putting someone on trial.

The crime in question in this show is a horrific assault, robbery and rape. A lone woman walking to the airport on a hot Spanish night is attacked at knife point, leaving deep psychological as well as physical wounds. Her experience is recounted with fraught sincerity under the unrelenting light of a single lamp, a camcorder live feeding close-ups of her nervously wringing hands onto the wall behind.

It’s disarmingly direct, and probes the experience with disturbing detail into how sexual trauma can cause long-term damage to a person’s relationship to their own mind and body. But as a piece of theatre, it’s frustratingly flat. Majorcan company Res de Res—whose powerfully atmospheric, 10-minute dance piece (remor) won a Total Theatre award at this venue back in 2012—seems to be only tangentially involved here, in a collaboration with Christina Gavel and En Blanc. It’s an entirely different theatrical proposition, but one which takes far fewer risks – the monologue format depends on captivating writing, and while this is certainly graphic and hard-hitting at times, it operates on only one fairly straightforward, underdeveloped level.