Creators: Bertrand Lesca & Nasi Voutsas
Director: Tim Etchells
An English language version of a show originally produced by Festival D’Avignon in 2023, L’addition is a piece that sits superbly alongside Fishbowl and The Ice Hole as an example of the type of the absurd physical theatre that seems to flow effortlessly out of France.
Directed by Forced Entertainment artistic director Tim Etchells and created by performance duo Bert and Nasi, it takes a very simple idea for a short scene and turns it into an always funny and frequently hilarious show as the same situation repeats with minor and major variations for much of the 70 minutes of the performance.
Before the basic routine of a customer ordering a drink from a waiter who doesn’t know when to stop pouring gets underway, Bert and Nasi try to outline the concept and format of the show. This in itself is superbly scripted and performed as Bert tries to give a simple high level description and Nasi frets about the details and the audience’s ability to understand the complications that are required for any performance at Summerhall. In the end, the short introduction goes on for more than ten minutes and leads to them changing the way they’re going to do the show. Or at least claiming they are going to change the way they’re doing the show.
As they begin the second run through of the scene it’s clear that things aren’t going quite how they planned. The physical theatre picks up speed and the variations on the scene get ever more complex, frantic, confused and funny. The few lines there are get pronounced in ways that vary from calm to desperate, and the additions to the idea get more and more elaborate until they’re stripped down to the basic set up and built up again in a different way.
Aware of how far they can stretch an idea before it needs a complete reset to avoid it becoming tired, they eventually realise that something is not quite right and they need a new approach to get themselves back on track. Another clever and witty exchange about how to do this leads to a slowed down version of the routine that then gives way to a version where the act of putting a knife and fork and a bottle and glass on the table is exaggerated and extended in a piece of farce at its finest.
There is a natural end point to the show that comes around ten minutes before the end, and a final dialogue scene feels like an unnecessary coda rather than a fitting conclusion, but that aside this is the funniest piece of movement based theatre this year and a brilliant example of how a simple idea can be stretched, bent and extended to produce something it’s impossible to turn your eyes away from even when nothing ever really happens in it.
Runs until 25 August 2024 | Image: Contributed