Compagnie du Hanneton: The Toad Knew

Compagnie du Hanneton: The Toad Knew

Acrobat, poet, clown, magician, musician, actor – the talents and skills of James Thierrée seem almost boundless. Inevitable, perhaps, coming as he does from such an impressive line of artists: great-grandfather Eugene O’Neill; another great-grandparent the Music Hall star Lily Harley; grandfather Charlie Chaplin; parents Jean-Baptiste Thierrée and Victoria Chaplin, legendary circus artists. Theatre is in his blood; circus was his school. Now, his Compagnie du Hanneton are here at the Edinburgh International Festival with their sixth show.

So what’s it all about, then? Ha – we should know better than to ask such a question of Thierrée: ‘I do not make theatre to explain what shakes our inner workings, but rather to roam around,’ he says in the programme notes. ‘La grenouille avait raison. Pourquoi ? Je n’en sais rien.’ I know nothing. But why did the French frog become an English toad, that’s what I want to know. I probably never will. I will add it to the mysteries of the show.

This much I know. The red curtain is drawn back by a chanteuse (Mariama), and we see a breathtakingly beautiful magical chamber – shimmering fabrics in silver-grey, old gold, copper, teal. Perhaps it is an extraordinary creature’s den deep below the earth. Perhaps it is a scientist’s lair reimagined by HP Lovecraft. Perhaps it is a steampunk space-station. At ceiling height in this chamber is what the artist calls ‘un kaléidoscope caractériel’ which may or may not translate as an emotionally disturbed kaleidoscope. What I see is an oddly ominous collection of spherical objects on wires that seem to have a mind of their own – mini flying saucers that hover, group, and separate, glowing in different colours. The brain of the cell, perhaps? The chamber has a metallic spiral staircase, leading nowhere, that twists and turns around a kind of Chinese pole – thus providing a very lovely site for acrobatics, as well as making a suggestion of something otherworldly that is in between Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Murakami’s IQ84. The chamber also contains a water tank waiting for its Ophelia, and a magnificently ornate upright piano with the most decadently curvaceous legs you could imagine. Every so often there is an ominous electrical sizzle from the rear of the stage, lighting up human figures and turning them into shadow puppets. Is Dr Frankenstein in the house?

There are other inhabitants of this space. Human, possibly fairy, and animal. The two that we see most of, and are drawn to constantly, are a pair of fairytale siblings locked into an endless battle, existing in a space filled to the brim with love and rivalry. James Thierrée has met his match. Valerie Doucet is formidable. Formidable. (You need to imagine that said twice, once with an English accent, then again in French.) She ties herself into knots. She drapes herself round him, and around the piano, limbs akimbo, a spine like a rubber band. She spars and tumbles with him, her wild honey-brown hair trailing and flying. She flips and turns and falls and rises to fight again. She is the Goose Girl who gets stuck to anything or anyone she touches. These Arms of Mine… They are hilarious together, an extraordinary clown act. They are Beauty and – er, Beauty. Animus and Anima.

And Thierrée, of course, is always the clown – but this is the show in which he seems to have said to himself, well, I am of an age to really show that I am Chaplin’s grandson. So be it. It is whimsical, and lyrical. There is far less of the ensemble acrobatics and movement work from earlier shows, far more clever clowning and solo body-work or humorous duets. He takes no prisoners, pulls out all the stops. His body is fluid and mobile. He both celebrates and mocks himself and his heritage in a replaying of so many classic silent-movie clown routines. The priceless violin played beautifully, then thrown away in a crash of broken wood and strings. The handshake that becomes a wrestling match. The clattering silver dishes that fight back. The squaring up to the tall man, who might be the Guard (Yann Nedelec); or the short man, who seems to be the Servant (Samuel Duterte). Also in the mix is dancer/aerialist Thi Mai Nguyen, who is a kind of Deus Ex Machina, or magic helper – an ethereal Tinker Bell or Puck flitting through the space or around the staircase and aerial structures.

It’s not all away with the fairies: there is Mozart, there is Nina Simone. And there is a garish red plastic bucket floating in the water tank to bring us down to earth. There is also some absolutely gorgeous puppetry and object animation, including the culminating image of the show, created by the marvellous Victoria Chaplin (Thierrée’s mother) – where we at last meet the Lord – or perhaps Lady –  of the Lair.

This is an almost word-free show. There are the song lyrics, and there is a kind of grommelage that occasionally uses a few recognisable words of French or English, but the words are part of the wash of sound – there for their semiotic value, not their semantic worth. This is visual theatre, in the words of Antonin Artaud, ‘furnishing the spectator with the truthful precipitates of dreams’. This is circus – a bold circus interested in pushing the ‘trick’ or the ‘act’ or the ‘numero’ to its furthest limits. This is an amalgam of those two forms that is of the highest order –Thierrée is at the height of his powers, and The Toad Knew is a pure and absolute joy.

A dream of a show. A dream you don’t want to wake from.

 

The 2016 Edinburgh International Festival & Edinburgh Festival Fringe

 

 

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Dorothy Max Prior

About Dorothy Max Prior

Dorothy Max Prior is the editor of Total Theatre Magazine, and is also a performer, writer, dramaturg and choreographer/director working in theatre, dance, installation and outdoor arts. Much of her work is sited in public spaces or in venues other than regular theatres. She also writes essays and stories, some of which are published and some of which languish in bottom drawers – and she teaches drama, dance and creative non-fiction writing. www.dorothymaxprior.com