Theatre / circus city
Review: L’Enfant Qui…
As part of this year’s varied and accomplished Circus City festival, Belgian company Theatre D’Un Jour (T1J) performed their dazzling show L’Enfant Qui… at Bristol Old Vic during a short two-night gap during the run of The Crucible. Although T1J were confined to using the lights already in place, their highly polished physical performance benefited hugely from being played in the round within the partial on-stage seating built specially for The Crucible – this made for a truly spine-tingling experience for any audience member lucky enough to view it from such an intimate vantage point.
Founded in 1994, T1J has continually explored the notion of ‘creation art’ in an unfettered, daring way, using a mix of artistes and disciplines – in this case, music, mime, song, puppetry and object theatre, aerial and acrobatics. L’Enfant Qui… is inspired by the life of sculptor Jephan de Villiers, whose years of childhood sickness had led him to form a poetic and almost metaphysical relationship with nature, and whose curious, rootlike sculptures are made of found materials such as wood, leaves, fungi and feathers.
Here, T1J take the point-of-view and ‘otherness’ of a strange little child as a red thread to explore the space and potential threat of an unknown world with a sense of innocent wonder and curiosity. The beauty and elegance of this style of work lies in its conceptuality, rather than the wish to impose any narrative line on the imagery – so the watcher becomes like a dreamy child, drinking in impressions though the senses.
Dead leaves litter the stage, a cellist plays haunting themes. The two male ‘base’ acrobats build strong structures out of their own bodies, or out of wooden branches, for the exquisite ‘flyer’ Caroline Le Roy to delicately climb and launch herself from, while brilliant puppeteer Morgane Aimerie Robin pads her gorgeous boy puppet round to peep, hide and tentatively interact.
This is circus-theatre on a masterful level, watched with deep intakes of breath, so close that we can see the muscles contracting on the limbs of the acrobats. Pure magic, utterly mesmerising and completely un-British in style, T1J are an absolute scoop for Circus City.
is needed now More than ever
Circus City continues until Saturday, October 31. For more info and to book tickets, visit www.bristolcircuscity.com/events
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