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Complicité’s Mnemonic is, at its most basic, the intertwining of two tales. There’s the true story of the 1991 discovery of a 5,000 year-old body encased in an Alpine glacier and the attempts to piece together the fate that befell the man, nicknamed Ötzi; and the present day tailspin dragging down Omar (superbly played by Khalid Abdalla) after his partner Alice (Eileen Walsh) abandons him with a cryptic voicemail as she tries to find the father she long thought dead across a Europe battling with ideas of identity. But this is like describing a summer’s day as hot with a little wind. Director and creator Simon McBurney conjures memories, laughter, sensations, ideas and drifting emotions in the audience using touch, scent and imagery that flow rather than tell. Ultimately, the idea that without memory – without a known past – we cannot imagine the future underpins the journey. But engage with care. You might get as lost as Alice or become doomed, like the doctors unpicking Ötzi, who don’t realise that some parts of us would be better left undisturbed.
