The Peeping Tom firm deconstructs itself in the midst of the ice till it’s actually bare | News from Catalonia | EUROtoday

Long applause and a very good a part of the viewers on the Teatre Nacional de Catalunya (TNC) on their toes rewarded the efficiency final evening. by S62º58′,W60º39′ (in reference to the coordinates of Deception Island, off the Antarctic Peninsula), the brand new present by the celebrated Belgian dance theater firm Peeping Tom. The spectacular montage, presided over by the very reasonable operatic surroundings of a ship trapped within the ice on the finish of the world that implies romantic work corresponding to The sea of ​​ice by Caspar Friedrich or these by William Bradford and evokes the polar journey, it means a change of path within the trajectory of the group that introduces textual content at random and corners the dance that was a basic ingredient of its work.

The performances in Barcelona (till June 16, it’s undoubtedly one of many exhibits that should be seen this season), have been preceded by criticism, typically from the dance subject, that questioned the conversion of Peeping Tom to textual content theater. It should be emphasised that the group makes this transformation, which we’ll see whether it is irrevocable or one thing particular, preserving all of the humor, generally very black, the surrealism, the dreamlike cost and the sense of marvel and the unusual, even the absurd, that They are their hallmarks. It is true that extra of the formidable dance is lacking, stuffed with hypnotic actions, additionally an important attribute of the group (till now), particularly when it provides sensational hints of what that unimaginable dancer, Chey Jurado, is able to. But the change of Peeping Tom, a real leap into the void stuffed with braveness, journey and uncertainty, a real deconstruction of the group and a dangerous expedition into the unknown, constitutes an unlimited creative problem that should be acknowledged and valued.

S62º58′,W60º39′, or S62, as they admit to abbreviating it, is a piece that exhibits a bunch that isn’t content material with persevering with to reap the laurels which are already assured and tries to reinvent itself. Only for that nonconformity and contempt for sure success, with which he’s falling, he already deserves applause. Peeping Tom, underneath the path of Franck Chartier (the double soul of the corporate together with Gabriela Carrizo) launches with no web on this present to discover paths that take him out of consolation and the crushed path to get right into a thorny mess.

Theater inside the theater underneath the auspices of Pirandello and Beckett, seven characters and actors confront a director (Chartier himself) who’s heard however not seen, questioning his directions and frequently disturbing the progress of the play. A piece that was to be the story of beings trapped aboard their ship within the ice of Antarctica, a basic state of affairs within the historical past of polar exploration, to result in an existential reflection, the journey of dwelling in an empty world, a chilly nothing. In this case (“more of a dream than an exploration,” says Chartier), we aren’t within the nice epic adventures of Franklin's expedition in quest of the Northwest Passage or of Shackleton within the ice pack of the Weddell Sea, nor the anonymous ship from Peeping Tom is the Terror and the Erebus neither him Endurance however a extra modest and fashionable pleasure boat that we don't understand how the hell ended up within the icy waters of Deception Island (in any case, Peeping Tom's boat and its rocking mechanism on the ice are actually taking place in historical past of the naval theater that now we have seen right here, along with the privateer ship of Mar i Cel). The crew isn’t the basic one among a polar journey both, however the common picturesque gallery of Peeping Tom, extravagant, torn, humorous, tragic and ridiculous, violent and nostalgic beings (like ourselves, come on), trapped in a dystopia, because it has been described. very rightly the director of the TNC Carme Portaceli.

In an area dominated by snow, ice, chilly, wind (after all), helplessness and smash, a panorama that’s each pictorial and very conventional. peepingtomiano –let's keep in mind 32 rue Vandenbranden (2009), evidently we’re going to attend a canonical illustration of the corporate, these unstable universes of nightmares, worry and want, populated by losers.

But the motion is minimize repeatedly (“coupez!”) when an actor expresses his dissatisfaction and leaves offended by way of the stalls, an eco-feminist actress questions the that means of the work (“are we suggesting that the poles? And your environmental footprint Francky?”) and criticizes the treatment of an animal on stage (a plastic fish), another actress, tired of repeating roles, wants to be “three-dimensional” and refuses to die as written ( a la Cordelia, with Sam Louwyck howling in a mix of King Lear, Ahab and Coleridge's Ancient Mariner), or Chey Jurado himself deplores the fact that there is no more dancing, shouting “but wasn't this a dance company? !” (sentence celebrated by the public). Among the funniest things about a show that has a lot of humor (and a lot of heartbreak), the fact that Franck Chartier is repeatedly described as “Castellucci del Raval”, in ironic reference to the shocking Italian director, and other imprecations from the actors to the author like “have you taken the pills?” and “open the melon of your masculinity, Francky!”

Chartier already explained when presenting his piece that the ship and the community of survivors stuck in the ice are an image of inspiration stranded. And the show abounds in that idea of ​​creative blockage and the need to find a way out – “what do you want to do?”, the overwhelmed director gives up. The situation dissolves into a series of scenes that abound in that common thread of reflection on creativity and the tribute that the profession takes on personal life, with some moments that go further and delve deeper—as it always does so well. Peeping Tom—in the depths of existential emptiness and human pain and trauma. Chartier relates ice and cold to patriarchal violence, of which many members of the company have experience, starting with what he suffered.

The actors' demands culminate in a long and unexpected epilogue in which the work abandons the blockbuster format and breaks the fourth wall to become a close-up monologue of an actor (Portuguese's Romeu Runa) who undresses to the unspeakable extent. to explain the abysses of his profession. Synthesizing what has been expressed in the performance (the instability, the frustration, the doubts, the sacrifice of personal and family life that the theater requires), Runa gives herself over to a disturbing, uncomfortable ritual that can even be unpleasant. for some viewers. He literally shows himself naked, playing with his sex and intimate areas, exposing himself in a way that no matter how often seen in the theater, it stops being shocking and even more so on a stage like that of the TNC's Great Room. Runa, with fascinating abrupt, grotesque and syncopated movements (at times reminiscent of Blake's ghost of the flea), threatens to organize an orgy and invades the stalls in search of a partner (last night he ran into Santi Fontevila, who is already luck) and then leave the room hand in hand with a spectator. An overly long ending, a difficult interpretive lesson, no doubt, but it blurs the excellent textual drift on the ice of Peeping Tom. An adventure that, of course, is not a blunder at all.

You can follow EL PAÍS Catalunya in Facebook y Xclick here to receive our weekly newsletter