Bestiares (Review by Daniel Parcell)

A man in a curly wig stands on a crate with a microphone hanging from the ceiling. He delivers a series of innocuous jokes. It turns out, like Superman, Cupid ain’t funny.

Or maybe it’s just me. He sets the scene. A group of greek gods have returned to help with the economic woes of the present. The audience respond to this set up with genuine mirth, and I feel more and more as though I’m at a party I haven’t been invited to. Surely the rubbing up of ancient myth against current violences will result in brighter sparks than this.

The failure to ignite becomes a key theme of Bestiaires. Amidst two blocks of stone on stage, red and orange lighting serves as counterpoint to a procession of scenes in which the gods bicker, pontificate, fall in love, and generally forget to come to our aid.

They are themselves magnificent. Things become more promising as Persephone slowly emerges from one of the rocks. For a moment my bafflement becomes one of wonder. Later, a head without a body is self-propelled, and fluent in its ridiculousness. Cerberus bristles to life.

The movement of the puppet gods is often so arresting that it threatens to overshadow other elements of the production. Projections stream by, only rarely acknowledging the rest of the setting. The incorporation of ‘pure’ dance also seems to serve little. Although the cross-discipline approach is as an ideal introduction to the many languages of visual theatre, we are in dangerous territory indeed when the chant “the gods are bored” brings our attention to the increased presence of mere mortals around half-way through.

Having said this, human and nonhuman interaction often ensures that the performance transcends its constituent parts. In perhaps the most arresting scene, Cupid lies on a red incline, splayed out and, like Chris Burden, transfixed. Cerberus has been bitten by one of his modern-day love bullets, and, a truly menacing presence, stands astride his head. I hear the people in the seats behind me wondering what the hell has happened. It is all left unsaid, and rather poignant. I start to believe a higher power has been deftly manipulating clichés all along. That is until the soundtrack floods the moment.

The visual is often associated with immediacy, or ready communication. Sound, by contrast, is the realm of the gods – one of unspoken motivations and feelings. That the soundtrack cannot escape its archetypes demonstrates the absurdity of such differentiation. Discordancy and droning brings little to the table. We already know that things have changed since Cupid’s similarly predictable introduction, even if we can’t exactly say how.

I still feel confused as the performance draws to a close. Perhaps it is good to be so. I defer to the godly, and transform doubt into faith. In the indeterminacy of visual theatre, this is where Bestiaires is at its most affecting.