Writer & Director: Julie Tenret, Sicaire Durieux and Sandrine Heyraud
When physical and object theatre work well, they create unforgettable images as a takeaway and the team behind Dimanche have gifted the most incredible series of images to their audience. With admirable use of sound effects, video, music, puppets and props they bring storm winds, crashing seas, fracturing polar ice and large wild animals – polar bears, flamingos and sharks no less – to the stage. Even more arresting is the interaction of the performers with everyday objects turned lethal, kinetic interplays that are just remarkable, so vividly realised and genuinely exhilarating to see. Some memorable scenes may be less dramatic than others but are very funny, making great use of comedic timing and slapstick (a good example being the opening scene where three wildlife reporters are just bopping along in their VW, listening to Paul Simon and having the odd smoke).
These three intrepid reporters represent one possible human response to human-induced environmental disaster, which in this play is imminent: they travel to precarious regions with their video recorder in tow and attempt to record the impact of climate change on animals, land and sea, at great risk to their own lives. The second response is portrayed by a family, living their best lives in denial in a hot stormy mess that proceeds to get even messier, stormier and somehow bizarrely funnier, because although the show wants to make some very critical points that we all do need to hear, they nonetheless temper the message with humour. Scene changes bring unbelievable transformations, one minute we’re in a family home where objects morph and melt, the next we’re under water in the ocean, it is an exhilarating ride which disorientates and defies expectations.
Dimanche is the creation of two Belgian theatre companies, Chaliwaté & Focus, working together since 2017 to make physical theatre, object theatre and puppetry. Their production is very accomplished, particularly the stage effects, sound and set construction by Brice Cannavo, Zoé Tenret, Bruno Mortaignie, Sébastien Boucherit and Sebastien Munck while the performers are fluid and hilariously clownish at times. Standout scenes foreground humanity’s vulnerability and stupidity – an elderly fragile puppet woman listens to opera with her feet in a basin of iced water, a family prepare a feast with candles and a roast amid an apocalyptic storm – while scenes highlighting the plight of animals perhaps segue into cliché with respect to the message but that is a minor quibble. Dimanche has its Irish premiere at the Town Hall Theatre, Courthouse Square, during this year’s Galway International Arts Festival 2025.
Runs until the 19th July 2025.
