In glancing a decade or so backwards, Operation Greenfield – the latest from the scorchingly promising Little Bulb Theatre Company – feels very Class of 2010. There’s a modishness about its embrace of retro kitsch and its folksy sound, as if it longs for a simpler time when phones made calls and teenagers made noise. Glazed with nostalgia and powered by spirit rather than polish, it contains – I suspect – an underlying rejection of all things 2.0. Yet, at the same time, there’s a near-permanent irony, patronising the past for its low-fi, low-def simplicity. That seems symptomatic of a generation content with its lot, but not the means behind its achievement. It couldn’t live without its gadgets, but loathes all they signify. It can’t help cynicism, but longs for genuine connection. It champions the uncool and values innocence enormously.
Operation Greenfield, arguably like Crocosmia before it, examines the loss of innocence during one’s formative years. This time, we’re in small-town Stokley, where a group of gawky teenagers are coagulating into a band, both as friends and musicians. What starts as a funk duo grows to a folk foursome with eyes on the local talent competition, for which they are penning a musical interpretation of the Annuciation.
There’s much to warm to within and yet, as a whole, it doesn’t fully satisfy. For all that Little Bulb make for delightful company – their gentle, homespun anarchy remains thoroughly infectious – Operation Greenfield suffers from a lack of rigour. Too many scenes function solely as gags that, though risible more often than not, seem like tangential asides. At times it comes perilously close to indulgence, averted only by their geniality. While there’s a newfound sense of layering, particularly in the way it compares Christian theology and rock ideology with the adolescent experience, Operation Greenfield never quite penetrates the surface or achieves an emotional velocity. It’s crying out for cuts.
Largely that’s to do with its performance mode, which keeps the corner of an eye on the audience at all times. For forty-five minutes the half-cocked presentational delivery amuses, lending an acutely observed absurdity to the teenagers. Their words, scattergun non-sequiters, are all doubting caution; their bodies are squirming contortions. Rather wonderfully, the rhythm of their movements recalls the stuttering animation of early arcade games, lending a dated quality to proceedings. However, as tenderly as Little Bulb handle the soft-cynicism, never straying into scorn, the two-dimensionality eventually grates. There’s a craving for sincerity, for the company to take these teenage-boppers seriously and invest emotionally. It’s all so throwaway that it starts to feel disposable.
But there’s also real diligence in their handling of the teenage experience, which never simplifies the difficulties and dichotomies of growing into and shaping one’s own identity. Little Bulb have found theirs and, with added intensity and scruples, it could prove rather exceptional.
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