Collaborator: Ockham’s Razor Co-Artistic Directors Charlotte Mooney and Alex Harvey on Trust, Partnership and a Final Farewell
Ockham’s Razor brings Collaborator to Lowry from 5–7 February — the first opportunity for audiences outside London to experience this brand-new production following its premiere at the London Mime Festival. Ahead of what will be their final performance together as a duo, we spoke with Co-Artistic Directors Charlotte Mooney and Alex Harvey about transforming their 20‑year creative partnership into their most personal work yet.
Collaborator is about your 20-year relationship. What was it like turning your working dynamic into stage material?
Charlotte : It’s actually been a really beautiful and funny process to talk to each other really honestly about our working dynamic and to try and be really true in what we put on stage. We have really raked over the coals of past tricky moments and the amazing thing is that that process often makes us laugh. It’s been interesting to focus on what we have learned - where we have been in tune and why and to craft that into movement and images.
Performing suspended in the air demands immense trust. How has that trust evolved between you over two decades?
Alex : Weirdly I think we had immense trust in each other physically from the very beginning. But certainly over the years this has deepened. We know each other’s bodies now so so well and how they move - I know on a cellular level almost how much force Charlotte will give to a movement how much I would need to brace against it. It’s a long practice.
Charlotte : When we work with performers we spend a lot of time working on building trust it’s something that has to exist in all aspects of the relationship. We have lots of practices in our rehearsal rooms to help the company build kindness and respect and I think over the years this has become the norm for us at home as well.
This is your final performance as a duo. Why did you decide to make this farewell show?
Charlotte : For the past 5 years or so we have been directing rather than performing. This was partly a practical decision - we wanted to be at home more rather than endlessly touring - we wanted to concentrate on developing our directing. But then we were getting older and someone asked if we had retired from performing and we realised that it had just happened to us; we had never actually made that decision, or marked the moment. This struck us as immeasurably sad that we would never move together again.
So we decided to make one last show : a farewell to performing if you like. If we decide to stop after this at least we will have done it consciously.
The show explores balance and wave interference—both "destructive" and "constructive." How do these concepts reflect what you've learned about collaboration?
Charlotte : When you see a wave travelling through water what you are seeing is the movement of a pulse of energy. When 2 waves meet that’s called wave interference and the 2 pulses of energy interact with each other. If the crest of one wave happens to meet the trough of the other they will completely destroy each other’s energy. If they both happen to meet at the same point of building to a crest they will build each other’s energy. I think this idea appealed to us as whether you flatten someone’s idea or support it is sometimes down to chance - you can best the collaborator in the world or the worst depending on how you are feeling that day. I like it because it acknowledges chance and that we aren’t independent of the sea of circumstance we find ourselves in.
What do you hope audiences will take away from Collaborator, and what's next for you both after stepping away from performing together?
Alex : It is a very personal show to us, but we hope it is also be something that audiences can deeply relate to. Ultimately it’s a show about how to build trust, how to accept your flaws and freak outs, how to carry on when you’re infused with doubt, how to stop battling against each other but use each other’s energy to carry each other forward. I think we could all do with a bit of that at the moment.
Charlotte : We are stepping away from performing but certainly not from making and directing. We are making a new show Greed which is an adaptation of a Greek story from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. It’s about a power mad king who tries to devour the world and gets properly taken down by the Goddess Demeter. It should be darkly comic and full of crazy circus invention. A cathartic fairytale for our time.
Tickets for Collaborator at Lowry are available now from thelowry.com