Lost Atoms has spectacular staging but the drama is underdeveloped

Anna Jordan’s Lost Atoms stacks scenes like snapshots in a manual, each an illustration of a phase in the relationship. The dynamics of the action are created, via Scott Graham’s direction, by the interplay between the performers and the set (designed by Andrzej Goulding).

A bank of filing cabinets forms the back wall of the playing area, otherwise bare but for two outsize armchairs. From the cabinet drawers the characters take mementoes that evoke shared moments. So far, so obvious. However, to reach the drawers, Joe Layton and Hannah Sinclair Robinson must scamper up, down and along; sideways and upside down like human geckoes (impressive agility matched by realistic characterisation).

A bed-sized flap, raised and lowered drawbridge-like, causes Robbie and Jess to scramble, roll, cascade. These physical movements externalise feelings such as sexual ecstasy or psychic distress, their interactions with the unpredictable objects symbolising uncertainties with self or with the other. Corresponding moods and atmospheres are intensified by light (Simisola Majekodunmi), sound (Carolyn Downing) and music (Julie Blake).

Collaborative devising is the core of Frantic Assembly’s theatre-making. Here, the touring company’s 30th anniversary co-production (with Curve, Leicester, Mayflower, Southampton and the Lyric, Hammersmith) demonstrates a weakness and strength of this approach: the drama feels underdeveloped by comparison with the theatrical effects.

Photograph by Tristram Kenton