Director: Guillaume Pigé
This acclaimed visual theatre company has made a welcome return to Edinburgh, where it first appeared in 2012, with a show in true Fringe style. Gone are the large cast and fancy staging they’ve become used to, in productions toured around the world. Everything has been stripped back to essentials, as the leading trio, now parents hitting mid-life, question why they continue to do this work. A single chair is the only piece of set.
Whereas most of their performances are non-verbal, this one combines energetic movement (by Guillaume Pigé), live music (by Alex Judd) and dynamic lighting (by Katherine Graham) with a commentary that seeks to explain how these elements come together to create meaningful sequences. This has been a big challenge for the cast. They’ve been devising pieces in a certain way for a long time, developing shorthand methods of communicating what works and what doesn’t. So demonstrating this – and discussing it at the same time – is a tall order. But they succeed, and they do so with style and panache.
The show opens with a babble of production chatter. Guillaume plays with the chair as if it’s a child. We get to see how Katherine and Alex provide a critique of Guillaume’s movement as he builds a sequence, while they experiment with light and sound to give it added emotional depth. All three elements are superb and there is even a fourth dimension, with the unseen Ben Adams chipping in over the sound system.
Katherine tells Guillaume his last improvisation was too rosy, too sentimental, while Alex’s music was pointing the way forward. It’s utterly brilliant, adding interesting notes of wistfulness and foreboding.
In another scene, Guillaume tells us it’s not enough to hit upon arresting imagery for its own sake. An image that Katherine and Alex both like may have to be dropped, because there comes a point when storytelling has to take precedence.
And lo, before our eyes, from the fragments of action that we’ve seen being rehearsed, a sustained sequence takes shape, exploring the life cycle of parent-child relationships. In context, even that tricky image suddenly makes sense and adds powerfully to the piece. The artistic quality on show here is extraordinary.
By this point, we’ve already been told that precious moments in life can’t be repeated, but moments on stage can be. Perhaps this observation is the crux of the show, because it places a value on the enactment of human situations and emotions, on sharing those actions, images and sounds, and making them beautiful.
Runs until 29 January 2025 then tours England | Image: Contributed