The acclaimed contemporary performance duo Bert and Nasi return to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe with a new show, L’Addition, directed by Tim Etchells of Forced Entertainment. John Dean was there for Total Theatre Magazine
L’Addition is a masterclass in how to create rich, provocative meaning from a simple, playful premise. It begins with the two performers, dressed in white shirts and dark trousers, introducing their show to the audience, reassuring us about the uncomplicated nature of the work we are about to see. They wish to share a single scene with us – however, this simple proposal is soon confounded as they begin to reflect on how complicated the work might actually be, and as they complete each other’s sentences they appear to influence and persuade each other that the work is actually rather complicated indeed, and perhaps risks confusing anyone watching, a pattern of interaction that lays the foundations for the meticulously planned mechanism to follow.
The first section, the preamble, has Bert and Nasi explaining to us in detail what we are about to see – a customer will order a glass of wine from a waiter, the waiter will pour a taster, the customer sips and nods agreement, the waiter then proceeds to fill the glass, but for some reason doesn’t stop, to the point of overflowing. The wine soaks the white tablecloth, the waiter dabs up the mess with a napkin, then bundles up everything on the table and removes it to a corner of the stage (‘Our stage right, your left’ as the performers take pains to tell us in one of many meta-theatrical references threaded throughout the show, with Bert and Nasi reminding us we’re all at Summerhall, known for its ‘complicated’ work, in the middle of the Edinburgh Fringe – rooting us in the here-and-now and allowing us to act as witnesses to the unfolding semi-anarchy). The performers propose that at the end of the scene they swap roles and repeat, ad libitum.
However, the act of describing this strategy again gets tangled in self-inflicted complexity, and once the preamble has been exhausted, the performers agree (and they are often delightfully accepting of each other’s proposals) that it would probably be easiest just to show us the scene…
What follows is a game of variations-on-a-theme: innumerable versions of the same routine played out in ever-increasing levels of absurdity, with Burt and Nasi pushing deadpan clownesque provocations to their limits with every unfolding replay. At one stage, with a dose of self-irony, the repetition gives rise to the proposal that we are now 50 years in the future, with the performers still performing the same scene, and that we too have been sitting watching for 50 years, which suddenly makes this seem a very short show indeed by contrast… and we are encouraged to note that some of us will have inevitably passed away in the meantime, provoking a reflection on our individual and collective mortalities in the space.
The performance I attended was BSL interpreted by Yvonne Strain, who was excellently balanced within the work, acting as co-performer and foil to Bert and Nasi. Yvonne provided a third equally strong stage presence which was an example of best practice in theatre accessibility, seamlessly weaving the signing into the work itself, making it a fundamental and necessary part of the performance. Yvonne was referred to, included, improvised with; complementing and sustaining the pair, perfectly pitched as an inbuilt support act, never superfluous or imposing, always an organic facet of the tightly choreographed mechanism.
The richness of this masterfully crafted work lies in allowing us space to read between the lines of its comedic mechanism, and to question the absurdity we are presented with. What drives the performers to want to repeat this work endlessly? What are they striving for? What is the nature of their (passive-aggressive) relationship with each other? The expertly honed rhythms of the work – in shifting patterns of play and pause – never in themselves provide answers to any of these questions, but allow gaps for us to glimpse bigger themes such as the power struggles inherent in negotiating life’s routines, the dogged pursuit of our goals, and how we can become enslaved by complexities that we manufacture for ourselves. Towards the end, the farcical lens is turned on who ought to pay the bill… a political metaphor which resonates well beyond the performance itself.
The work was brilliantly devised by Bert and Nasi, together with director Tim Etchells of Forced Entertainment. Those familiar with the work of either Etchells or Bert and Nasi might recognise some of the preoccupations explored here: the invitation to witness people grappling with the making of performance; the playful questioning of the nature of performance itself; and the exploration of what drives us to create, recreate, reject, and repeat.
L’Addition is clearly the original product of a shared artistic intent, and the fluid collaboration between director and performers has generated much fertile and exciting material, deftly played out within a deceptively simple frame.
Featured image (top): Bert and Nasi: L’Addition. Photo Christophe Raynaude de Lage.
Bert and Nasi: L’Addition, produced by Forced Entertainment, was presented at the Old Lab at Summerhall 11- as part of the Here & Now showcase for Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2024.
