Bestiaires (Phil Wilson)

It turns out Cupid is a comically jaded, peroxide blond. Contrary to many a sickly sweet painting, the god of desire comes swaddled in a dishevelled suit, a vibrant thatch of facial hair and punctuates his colloquy with animated nips from a poorly concealed half bottle.

But more importantly: his feet remain firmly on the ground, often in a bid to adroitly manipulate a slew of unnerving, inanimate foam deities.

If this is sounding anything akin to poorly formed negative criticism, then I apologise; it’s actually poorly formed positive criticism. Duda Paiva Company’s contemporary twist on Greek mythology (financial crises, throbbing underworld electro music and loaded six-shooters present and accounted for) is an enlivening feat of dedication, precision and intricate puppetry.

Amid farcical infatuations, flamboyant dialogue and enthralling dance, is a towering taste of the sinister: a complex sequence of physical surefootedness depicting, in her full serpentine splendour, Medusa (puppet) throttling the flailing Athena (living, breathing human) is a difficult image to brush aside.

This could be a result of the show’s mechanics appearing in such a transparent manner. Cupid spends a large portion of his performance elbow deep between Persephone’s breasts in order to contort her torso in such a way as to reject his advances. It’s quite a sight.

Such a sight, in fact, that the audience is invited on stage, post-performance, to inspect and claw at the prone puppets themselves. As such, I can now proudly state that I’ve playfully tickled the distended belly of Hades.

By its very nature, Bestiaires is a lesson in excited disarray – although masterful in its physicality, its facetious tone threatens to unravel some of the tightly choreographed atmosphere. A lengthy, blunt monologue on the versatility of the word ‘fuck’ (pondered by the jiggling head of Zeus) feels abjectly misplaced.

However, even this one, tepid, criticism becomes somewhat moot when the same musing cranium later regurgitates Athena moments before she flourishes into celestial dance.

Bestiaires is an indefatigable, cracked examination; not only of Greek mythology, but also of the intricacies of humanity through its fascination with lust, desire, power and brutality – albeit, by way of divine beings.

Technically mesmerising and relentlessly enjoyable, it’s a performance that’s difficult to forget, and all too easy to admire; if only for Cupid’s fully loaded Eastwood moment with his shooter..

 

 

My Top Five Manipulate Moments

Coming in at number five, we have the invitation by a bewigged Cupid to the audience to ‘come and have a feel of the puppets’ (Bestiares). Only moments earlier, when the performers took their bow, I turned to Elliot Roberts and asked ‘where are the other two?’ before realising that Hades and Persephone were, in fact, the foamy objects on the stage and not, in fact, real people.

At number four, it’s Paper Doll Militia’s name. Sure, they are great at the aerial action, swinging on silks and spinning through the air, but the mash-up of hardcore action and gentle childhood toy makes their name one of the most evocative tags since cabaret-punk or progressive rock. But unlike the latter, they delivered on the promise.

An odd entry at number three: not getting tickets to Grit. I might have been sorry to miss the show – a moving reflection on war and childhood, but it is wonderful that a Scottish based company are selling out at a festival that has plenty of international presence. 

In at two, there’s Lonely Bones in the Tilt your Thinking compilation of animated shorts. I have always wanted to know what would happen if Nick Cave made a feature with David Lynch, and Rosto’s disorientating journey through multiple animation techniques, leering ghosts and vague occultists felt like a jam between a group of surrealists and the cast of the grand guignol.

But coming out at the top of the charts, it has to be the monstrous moment of monolithic mayhem when Planet Luvos went underwater and the five dancers became twisted creatures with hands for legs and bottoms for eyes. Neither horrific nor soothing, the contortions went beyond being impressive to staking out new ground for manipulation of the human body.

Bestiares (review by Sophie Macdonald)

People may have their doubts about puppet shows for adults but Bestiares would soon put those to rest. Its highly adult theme intertwines comedy, uncomfortable sexual scenarios and classic Greek tales set against the rocky background of Greece’s current economic climate. As always where Greek Gods are concerned, chaos quickly ensues.

The comedy isn’t for everyone – perhaps a little pantomime-ish, a strong  contrast to the mature content of the performance, but there are some subtle gems; Cupid’s more restrained, reproachful looks are hilarious and familiar and Persephone’s quest for love is both heart wrenching and funny.

Certainly not for the faint hearted, Bestiares involved some (rather crude) scenes, in one of which the head of Zeus essentially just said “fuck” as many times as they thought they could get away with, and another that had some rather questionable – but rather entertaining – nods towards bestiality, which quickly turned uncomfortable and sinister, much like many of the traditional Greek tales.

None the less, the performances were beautifully executed, it didn’t take long until you found yourself emotionally empathising with a foam puppet over unrequited love, the skill the performers had to control these larger than life props while making them appear autonomous is something to be marvelled at and I’m very excited to see what the Dudapaiva Company have up their sleeve next!

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.

Grooving with the Oldies

Like The Krankies, the Greeks Gods have seen better days, but can still turn on those slick vaudeville moves. Now in a reduced line-up – only Zeus, Persephone, Athena and Hades remain from the classic line-up, with former bit-part player Cupid and the glamorous Medusa making up the numbers – their cabaret-style reunion has flashes of their former world-beating power and passion, but an undertow of melancholy is visible even when they breath new life into tested routines.

Cupid, once the child-star and now the compere, admits that he has lost his mojo: substituting a gun for the iconic bow and arrow, he puts the veterans through their paces. Zeus, the original matinee idol with a string of paternity suits to shame Dave Lee Roth, plays the elder statesman, even though he has been reduced to a mere head. Meanwhile, the eternal romance of Persephone and Hades is starting to show the cracks: there is a sense that he is more interested in Medusa than the woman he once caused Winter for.

While their early productions focusses on metaphysics – and the occasional foray into thrilling adventures, this come-back both acknowledges the financial pressures that encouraged a return to the stage and sends up the economic crisis. Hades is sold to China (and apparently comes back ready to be trained for Sumo), Cupid is pretty blunt about why they are touring again: and the pressures of maintaining a two thousand year old back-catalogue lead them to experiment with new versions of the favourites. Whether Medusa’s transformation into the ugly gorgon has become too familiar, or Hades’ image as a moribund fatalist is ripe for reinvention, these gods are ready to spice them up with variations. Medusa, in particular, adds a sensual edge, while both Athena and Cupid can still hoof with the best of them.

Equally tragic and witty, Bestaires proves that there is more to the Gods than mere nostalgia and after comic mayhem that would impress the Chuckle Brothers, Hades’ return from China is a set-piece that captures in a repeated series of movements, both the futility and the courage of a veteran pantheon trying to get up for one more dance with fate.

Bestiaires by Dudapaiva Company (Traverse Theatre Edinburgh, Review by Elliot Roberts)

“Stay very still.”

Cupid, resplendent with a blonde comedy wig to jar beside his auburn beard, appears out of the darkness. As he stands there, elevated, toying with the bungee cord from which his microphone hangs, his stand-up comedian-esque patter washes into the audience. After a potential Freudian slip, in which we are thanked for our currency rather than our generosity, a sensitive question is broached.

“You have heard about the financial crisis haven’t you?”

This image comes to haunt Bestiaires: touches of the serious and the great, sparked with the irreverent and the absurd. The incongruity of this image, of a stand-up style introduction to antiquity by a Greek perched on a crate marked fragile gives a decent indication of the tone throughout. Immortal figures of Antiquity are awoken from their slumber amongst formations of rubbery rock to chide, undermine, and chase each other through dialogue shot through with modern colloquialisms.

What’s more, as we are told, a tint begrudgingly, in these times of trouble even the Greek Gods must do their bit to aid their beleaguered homeland. Cupid trades his bows and arrows in for a revolver, the underworld domain of Hades rings with the beats of a basement nightclub, the disembodied head of Zeus rhapsodises on the linguistic malleability of the F word, Hades is sold off to China against his will, Medusa bests Athena in a power-walking race, Hades returns to the pantheon again with a gut bulging large enough to merit a slapstick routine, and Persephonê in grief divests herself of her own puppeteer and echoes the oddly corpse-like resemblance of her own form

There are many examples of fine puppetry, with the three-strong company exhibiting skills as dancers, singers, performers and puppeteers. One strikingly powerful moment occurs between Athena and her puppet rival Medusa, as a violent scuffle breaks out, causing Athena to thrash and writhe, with each movement arcing into the puppet body of the relentless Medusa, whose hands close menacingly around her throat. As the brawl between slows to the point of stopping, and we fear her succumbed to the curse of stone, unfolding are stopped in their tracks by Cupid: “what are you doing? This isn’t even in the chapters of Greek mythology!”

As to whether reverence can or should be the reply to irreverence is a question for another time, there is still an unmistakable joy in seeing the company play. In hauntingly ventriloquist tones, as Hades croons his sorrow at being crammed into a packing crate, Hell, and by extension their antiquity, they tell us in apologetic tones “is our bestselling export.”