Ockham's Razor: life on a wire

Ever since Frenchman Jules Léotard wowed Victorian audiences with his new-fangled invention, the ­flying trapeze, circus ­performers have happily perpetuated the illusion that they whoosh through the air with the ­greatest of ease. The three members of theatre group Ockham's Razor, however, are different. "Often in circus you're trying to hide the difficulty of what you do," says Charlotte Mooney. "But we're interested in showing the physical ­labour of ­circus," says Alex Harvey, ­finishing the sentence. Mooney and Harvey met as students at the Circomedia Academy of Circus Arts in Bristol and started their theatre company in 2004, later recruiting ­German aerialist Tina Koch as a ­co-director and performer. Taking ­inspiration from Léotard, the trio design new apparatus for each show. For their debut, Memento Mori, they updated the trapeze, arranging four metal bars in a rectangle so "it disappeared – what you saw were the bodies moving around it", says Mooney. And for their last show, Arc, they created a skeletal raft that ­repeatedly tipped up, requiring the ­performers to cling on for dear life. If that sounds dangerous, it's nothing compared to the giant hamster wheel conceived for their latest show, The Mill, which opened last night, as part of the London mime festival. Looming ­ominously over their rehearsal space, a chilly warehouse near the Thames barrier, the wheel is attached to ropes and pulleys that, when manipulated, make its movements unpredictable and perilous. "We call it the tumble-drier," says Toby Sedgwick, the award-winning choreographer for the National's ­production of War Horse, who is ­directing The Mill. "It's incredibly ­powerful – once it starts moving, no one can stop it." There are five performers in the show, all sporting injuries in their wrists, ankles and feet. "We create routines by the millimetre," says Koch. "It's a very, very slow process." The company tested several pieces of equipment before settling on the wheel. "We bashed around with various Heath Robinson-style systems, and they were all rubbish," says Harvey. Each device created a stunning visual effect, but that was all – whereas the hamster wheel ­invoked multiple analogies. It takes four people to make it turn, each with their own job; their movements seem at once harmonious and disturbing, with echoes of the labour camp. Bringing a fifth person in allows the company to explore human nature: the work looks at the way a stranger can disrupt a ­social group; at workplace ­dynamics; and the fear of redundancy. "We started working on the show before the current economic crisis," says Mooney, "but inevitably it has that colour now." Ockham's Razor always choose their apparatus first, then build a narrative around it. "We have tried starting with the story, then finding equipment," says Harvey. "But as soon as we get on the equipment, we find it inherently has within it a different story." Sedgwick thinks the problem with most attempts to mix circus and theatre is that there is no real integration of the two: "The director wants the performer to look like a bird flying, but all we see is someone executing a fantastic ­somersault on a trampoline." They started work on The Mill in summer 2008; in between, they have collaborated with other theatre ­companies, including Oily Cart and Theatre-Rites. The trouble is that such work isn't as physically intensive as their own productions, and the trio must train daily to keep up their strength. Following their show at the mime festival, they will be rehearsing for and performing in the revival of the Philip Glass opera Satyagraha, at the English National Opera, where they will have an exercise bar waiting for them in the wings. "There's a 20-minute section when we're not on stage, and we're ­going to do loads of pull-ups and leg braces, then rush back on for the final moments," says Mooney. "Sweating," adds Harvey. Given how bruising and exhausting rehearsals and shows are, the trio know there's an age limit to their work. Harvey and Mooney are both 30, Koch 35. "Because you're stretching into the muscles, and it's quite low-impact, you can keep going for quite a long time – I know some very good aerialists who are in their 40s," says Mooney. "But I think my energy might run out before then." The long-term goal, says Harvey, is to become the company's directors and employ younger performers. In the short term, they'll be happy to survive The Mill. After that, says Mooney, the plan is to create a work that is truer to their name, borrowed from William of Ockham, a medieval philosopher who argued that, when faced with two theories, one should opt for the simpler. "The next show," she says, only half-joking, "is just going to involve a chair and a toothbrush."