mnemonic / ni’monik / adj.
1. assisting or intended to assist memory; 2. of memory
I really enjoyed the opening- a ‘lecture’ on memory and how each time we piece the past together from fragments.
Khalid Abdalla tells us about the function of the hippocampus, the ways in which pasts and futures are connected, and the synaptic connectivity of memory. An audience participation activity feels briefly like an imaginative introspection into our own pasts.
As a play of ideas, Mnemonic is whimsical and diffuse. It is as if, with all these parts, the production does not quite deliver on a promise of profundity in tying them together – how the past and future are connected through memory.
The play was brilliantly directed by Simon McBurney (author) and energetically acted but as it developed I kept wondering what was the connection with the opening ‘lecture’ which I had found so interesting.
According to the program: ‘This story is as much about origins as it is about memory, and remembering what is lost. Mnemonic asks: what is our place in the natural world? How have human relationships with the environment shaped patterns of migration? Who are we, and where do we come from?’
For me the connection with memory was lost, as was I. In the end I walked out wondering what it was that I had watched.
Father M 