The visual structures of movement and a language of gestures that is integrated with the text comes together with music. The piece depicts a world of subtle energies and rhythms that govern Shakespeare’s tragedy, with crucial scenes from King Lear serving as starting points for the 'dramatic poem' songs. Thus, it is the music that becomes characters, relationships and events.
Each of the 12 songs are original compositions created by Polish multi-instrumentalist Maciej Rychły and the Corsican composer Jean-Claude Acquaviv, and the dramaturgy was directed by Song of the Goat’s Grzegorz Bral.
The piece has garnered immensly enthusiastic reviews as well as the Fringe First and the Herald Archangel Awards at the 2012 Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
Alice De Cent, who presented the production with a 5 star review for fringeguru.com, placed emphasis on the way Song of the Goat team use song to captivate the audience's imagination and wrote that "With piercing vocals and soothing harmonies, it is impossible not to get caught up in the story the performers weave for the audience". De Cent called magical theatre, and wrote that:
With exquisite harmonies, flawless a cappella singing and a variety of folk instruments, Song Of the Goat create soaring and emotional soundscapes that evoke the spirit of the story of Lear, address the play’s themes, and do not shy away from the play’s harsher and tragic aspects.
An award-winning company that tours internationally, Song of the Goat Theatre (Teatr Pieśni Kozła) has been hailed as the most exciting, innovative new avant-garde theatre movement in Poland. Founded in Wrocław between 1996 and 1997 by Grzegorz Bral and Anna Zubrzycka, the group's interest is mainly rooted in the tradition and culture of various performaning arts, especially in terms of the musical aspects of these traditions.
The company’s work encompasses anthropological studies and expeditions - to Greece, Albania, Taiwan - and the group's members frequently conduct actor workshops. Training focuses above all on voice exercises, while the technique of acting and physical coordination are taught by Grzegorz Bral. Song of the Goat Theatre is the only alternative theatre company in Poland (and one of only two such companies in Europe), that holds a postgraduate study programme allowing actors to obtain a Master of Arts degree.
Editor: Paulina Schlosser, source: fringeguru.com, press release, 11.06.2013