November 01, 2007
Magic
Mime is a bit of a dirty word, sullied in everyone's mind by hapless bodystockinged ponces mapping the geography of nonexistent glass boxes. Chaplin scion James Thiérée's art is, in large part, mime. Also nudging up there on the undesirability scale, clowning, which brings to mind the frightful spectres of Poltergeist and Child's Play and It. Fortunately we can clothe these misdemeanours in the more fashionable garments of circus and dance and physical theatre and just about get away with it.
Thiérrée's latest show, Au revoir parapluie, ticks all those boxes and is pretty magical to boot. Particularly worthy of mention is the aerial work: the often plodding discipline of corde lisse is used so brilliantly to extend the theatrical space into a whole new dimension that you'll forget every half-assed spanish web performance you've ever twiddled your thumbs through. And the (almost) opening image of twirling ropes is staggering in a way that it just has no business being. The show is uneven and to my mind a little overextended, but it's definitely worth seeing.
Posted by matt at November 1, 2007 02:13 AM
Comments
Hapless... bodystockinged... ponces.
Write it in the sky in gossamer teardrops*: Hapless. Bodystockinged. Ponces.
(*with respect to Patton Oswalt)
Posted by: robin at November 2, 2007 12:55 AM
[This is very strange. I have moved my blog-reading activity to NetNewsWire, and so I was trying to type this comment in NNW. And it worked, but the space bar didn't.]
Yes, that twirling ropey thing was wonderful. And some nice images. But far too long and patchy, with the result I ended up totally disengaged and tetchy, wondering what time it was.
All the good bits are in the first third or so, anyway.
Posted by: Max at November 2, 2007 09:40 AM
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