At The Playhouse, Melbourne Arts Centre
Reviewer: Kate Herbert around 12 Feb 1994
This review was published in The Melbourne Times after Feb 12 1994. KH
There is a magical journey which can only be taken with Compagnie Philippe Genty. This company ignores narrative and combines dance, mime, clown and visual theatre to create a potpourri of delicious imagery.
Forget Me Not is the latest production from this internationally acclaimed company. Actors are partnered with life-size puppets. They are dressed in white gowns and dinner suits and are none of them quite complete humans. They cannot stand. They prop each other up. Bodies tumble like dolls and dolls collapse like humans. We question reality at every point. Which are the puppets? Which are human size?
Much of the performance is pure clown. Slapstick such as the three slippery water-wielding morticians, is often gut wrenchingly hilarious and yet much is accompanied by a delicacy and poignancy.
The dramatic interplay between these anonymous characters comments incisively but silently on relationships and humanity. We laugh at the tragedy of human existence, our disasters and our foibles, our loves and disputes. And the whole scenario is viewed by a rather bemused and be-gowned ape woman who seems incredulous about human behaviour and reacts simply by whacking the recalcitrant on the head. Simple enough.
Forget Me Not echoes the sharp social observation and choreography of Pina Bausch's Wuppertaler Dance Theatre as well as the whimsy of Trestle Theatre's stage adaptation of Leunig. There are also Genty 's signatures: acres of billowing silk, stage smoke, evocative music and seven extraordinary, multi-skilled performers and endless magical illusions, appearances and disappearances.
This is truly an ensemble. There is a fluidity of movement and unity of spirit which allows the cast to move effortlessly as one. The sheer beauty, charm and resonance of images seemed to ring chords in the audience. It is a genuinely enchanting performance.
No comments:
Post a Comment