When I write an
article for a publication, I
start by
jotting
my ideas down on paper. Then I
read them, I think, I
try to
organize them. I structure, I
restructure, I
cut, I
develop. Finally, I polish the style. For my
blog, I
stop at
the first stage of notes organized more or
less randomly, because this is
not a
review. As
usual.
Thrilling moment: the show begins. Will it
please me?
Will
the creators meet the spectators expectations? A man is lying on the stage as the spectators walk in. I
thought it
was a
great,
disarticulated puppet. But when he gets up, we see that he is
a real man, just a
bit gray in his face. He stares
at the spectators as
they take their place. He
removes his standard gray suit, then his underwear. A naked man, what a beautiful object.
How fragile. He turns
over one of
the rubber plates that cover the gray scene: it is white on
the other side. He lays down on it.
A naked man is even more fragile. A
bearded man arrives, also
dressed in a standard grey suit. He
lays a
cloth on
the naked man. Until then, I have been seduced, but I
do not like much the fabric nor the way that the man drapes
it over the naked man,
it’s too self conscious. The bearded man leaves the stage, another arrives also dressed in
a standard suit. He lifts a rubber plate and drops it.
The draft lifts the tissue and moves
it off the body. The man is naked again. This action recurs at least a
dozen times, the men’s
actions closer
and closer together until they are on
stage
simultaneously.
I
do not understand the meaning of this scene. At least not immediately.
If I
reflect, I
put
together that the
man is submitted without recourse to the other two men’s actions. Either he's cold when the
sheet is off, or he’s hot when he's
covered, but the two men do not seem to care about his welfare.
Soon there are six men on stage, two women. Yes, I take
a count. For many male creators, a human is a man. Women work
as an accessory that define man as clothing or
decor. But when a woman emerges from a astronaut costume, against all odds, I review my
hasty judgment. He now has six men and three women. It's better, but we could have six women and four men, for example, though they would not wear the standard suit in
the same way. They are either in long black dresses, or
in
alluring lingerie.
Music: the famous waltz, slowed down at least 10 fold, by Johannes
Strauss. An astronaut appears on the scene. Hello, 2001 A Space Odyssey, by
Kubrick!
The show explores humans as individuals, their consciousness. A
theme that I like very much.
I
argued that humans have a
consciousness of
themselves, and offered as a metaphor a
novel.
While it is made of
words on
paper, the novel still exists if one burns the paper. He
argued back, what
about a severed hand still alive and kicking, something science might
achieve soon? Is it
human? Dimitris Papaioannou seems to
want to
answer these questions. A woman appears advancing on
legs that are too big, like a
spider’s. The illusion is created by two men bent over who
walk backwards while she rests
on their bodies. One leg is naked, the other is black and disappears against the black background. During the show, limbs appear here and there on the stage, detached and then regrouping to
form a
human being. Witchcraft. The magic of the theater, Deus ex machina, Robert Lepage would approve.
The relationship between the body and the individual human being is explored. When is the body a human being, when does it stop being a human? Do the limbs scattered on stage add up to a person? The 17th century Puritans in Rembrandt's painting, reproduced by the dancers, thought it was fine dissecting a body, whereas it had been forbidden by the Catholic church.
The relationship between the body and the individual human being is explored. When is the body a human being, when does it stop being a human? Do the limbs scattered on stage add up to a person? The 17th century Puritans in Rembrandt's painting, reproduced by the dancers, thought it was fine dissecting a body, whereas it had been forbidden by the Catholic church.
Papaioannou began his career by
making comic books, and he
certainly has an exceptional
control of gestural language. The staging of
the
bodies and their movements across the stage shows great skill, great talent. A man puts on shoes that seem to lie on the stage. When he
picks them up, they turn out to have roots. He walks on his hands, his feet waving their roots in
the air. A memorable
image. Pina Bausch. Is it in the tradition of gestural theater? Dance-theater? It's more delectable not to put a label on
it.
The same position of
an actor / dancer / acrobat evokes something else depending on the sequence in which it appears in
the room. For example, an
actor in
a swimmer position between the legs of another actor reminds me
of a
boat prow. Later, this same position evokes a
man floating in a state of weightlessness. Similarly, arrows are thrown on the naked man who is protected by some rubber plates,
these same arrows become ears of corn that
the actors glean tenderly in
a beautiful scene.
Visuals reference Botticelli’s
Venus, Michelangelo’s
David, the Lesson of Dissection by Rembrandt. I
sometimes have the painful impression that as European creators, we have so much less to
say in
comparison with Africans, Asians, South Americans, that we resort to digging up
references in
our cultural past.
The actors undress and get dressed a lot. A LOT. Fortunately their jackets are not double breasted, nor their trousers with buttonholes.
At points, it felt like the creator wondered, what else could we do
now? Some of the tricks he came
up with, ingenious, should have been gotten rid of, because they did not contribute to
the integrity of the show. As Steven King advised, the creator must be able to kill his little darlings. Sometimes, if I do
not understand an
action or
an effect, I give them the benefit of
the doubt. At other times, no, it does not convince me
at all.
-->
Even during performances I relish, I
look forward to the
end, from
being a prisoner of the spectator-creator relationship: what if I do
not like the show? Help!
What if
an actor forgets his
role and begins to cry on
stage? What if I love it, and all the other spectators boo and whistle and all the actors begin to cry? The end comes as a relief. I do better during very long shows which I have a preference for. Either
very long or very short. That
longing embarrasses me,
as if
I forced myself to
go to
the theater, as if I
preferred to
drink a
glass of
wine while varnishing my toenails, when in fact, I love going, and leaving with my mind, my soul changed by what I have experienced.
Written and contributed by - - Arabella Hutter von Arx
