Ferguson and Barton is more than a homage to Vertigo. The production delightfully, obsessively, and neurotically analyses the plot through a fictional romantic relationship between the two leads, played by Lucy Ireland and Jim Manganello, who also co-created and directed the production. Ireland and Manganello use the language of Vertigo’s plot to play out and test out scenes from their relationship.
Ferguson and Barton displays the games and roles played in romantic and platonic relationships. The impossibility of figuring out if we tell each other we love each other because we’re repeating and repeating the words we believe we are meant to say, or because we’re lost in the other person, or because we genuinely feel them. Ireland and Manganello approach these questions sincerely and with a unique comic bite. An eternal difficulty which is magically technically translated into the visual medium in this production.
The characters are trying to understand each other, trying to communicate what they want from each other. These attempts at intimacy are mirrored in and made impossible by the fact that they’re talking to a projection of a reflection of the other person, whose real face is hidden, or they are looking at the other person distorted through a tank of water- this refracted looking is filmed and projected on a screen for the audience. Have John Ferguson and Judy Barton in Vertigo fallen in love with each other, or projections of reflections of each other? This communication problem is physically expressed through dance. The manipulation in relationships, the torture one is put through and puts the other through, both intentionally and not, and the pure unadulterated need for the other person, are all unpretentiously exhibited.
The lighting designer and production manager was Emma Jones, video designer was Rob Willoughby, scenic designer was Anna Yates, and the creative producer was Helen McIntosh. The starring duo run Shotput, a dance-theatre company in Glasgow and The Shotput Podcast, all about dance theatre in relation to Ferguson and Barton. The production approaches Vertigo as a psychological thriller, a love story, and, lastly, a tragedy. In 2023 Ferguson and Barton managed to be entirely original and actually interesting.
Ferguson and Barton ran at Festival Theatre: The Studio on Saturday 4th, February 2023. Part of MANIPULATE Festival 2023 running from 2-12 February 2023: www.manipulatefestival.org
Image Credit: ‘Ferguson and Barton by Shotput’ photographed by Amy Sinead provided via press release.