VAU DA SARAPALHA. To 12 April.

London

VAU DA SARAPALHA
by Joao Guimaraes Rosa adapted by Luiz Carlos Vasconcelos

Grupo Piollin at the Barbican Pit To 12 April 2003
Mon-Sat 7.45pm
Runs 1hr No interval

TICKETS: 020 7638 8891
www.barbican.org.uk/bite
Review: Timothy Ramsden 1 April

A festival of celebratory theatricality, leaving behind dramatic significance in this visit to the City of London.Two old men share their aches and bites. Malarial, they pass time on a stunted tree-trunk. Days pass, an old dog whimpers, skips and sleeps nearby while the most energetic person, an old woman, hauls in a demon to help her with work. Plenty to fire theatrical imaginations and this Brazilian company (who double as a performance-based school) are in their 12th year of touring what is, apparently, an ever-developing piece.

Two old men and a tree may suggest Waiting for Godot but it's not true that in Piollin's piece nothing happens twice. Rather, there's one climactic event – the revelation that Argemiro shared a passion for Ribero's long-departed wife - which splits the friendship of convenience between the joint stump-dwellers.

What gives the brief evening its fire is the theatricality. Simple devices- the entry of an apparently over-sized Ribero, who unfolds his cloak to reveal it contains both men, bound together in their life, until the split comes – thereby emphasising how profound the rift is. Or the subsequent device of showing repeated daily routine in repetitions at ever-increasing velocity.

Sparks fly, literally, as old Ceicao circles the men and sets her portable furnace going, while the action ends with a model boat containing figures of Ribero's wife and her lover, being set a-sail through a lake of fire: these men's stillness and loss emphasised by the contrast the toy image contains.

There's no doubting the involved, deeply-understood performances from the acting quintet. Grizzled old cuckold Ribero and sharp-dressed, cross-eyed young Argemiro are a perfectly consistent odd-matched couple brought together by common illness. Whether circling, scampering, nuzzling or panting, the sad dog Jilo is captured in detail of posture and movement. He connects the humans to the natural world around, with its range of vocal and found sounds, chiefly created by musician-actor Escurinho.

Sola Lira hurries around the stage, the sole female detached from all except her briefly-seen Demon. Grupo Poillin bring evident skills to the Pit; less transportable is an understanding of a way of life and thought that would help translate inventive theatrical dynamism into a vision of a closely-understood world-view.

The Demon : Escurinho
Cousin Ribero: Everaldo Pontes
Cousin Argemiro: Nanego Lira
The Dog Jilo: Servilio Holanda
The Old Woman Ceicao: Soia Lira

Director/Designer/Lighting/Music: Luiz Carlos Vasconcelos

2003-04-02 00:16:18