With the exception of the ten-year-old who was seated beside us (“Mum, this is weird”), you can’t imagine anyone will walk away from James Thierrée’s latest surreal, fragmented landscape with any doubt about the choreodramatist’s ambition. It is spectacle unlikely to find an equal this year in Sydney, which says as much about its idiosyncrasies as it does its quality.
Anticipation for Tabac Rouge has been building for some time, despite the odd international review lambasting the production as over-inflated and obtuse. I did not find this the case whatsoever, and the respectful standing ovation the show received (prior to a full-house ovation when the company raised “Je Suis Charlie” cards) shows I was hardly alone.
However, while a strong sense of narrative is rather outside the production’s intent, were we just a little more grounded in this ornate, bewildering world – threatening as it is fascinating – its resonance would have been much greater.
The production seems a sprawling evolutionary puzzle, with protean forms conjured from panels of burnished mirror arranged as a great, somewhat sentient wall. The function of the mirror is as vital as it is ambiguous. It is performer, witness, but also boundary, godhead, tyrant and seducer. Never static (for even when it is still, reflections loom peripatetically), it towers over strange lifeforms, whose components may just as readily be synthetic as they are flesh and blood. Lifeforms are assembled from the materials at hand: an armchair/throne gliding about like a starfish or amoeba; rudimentary monsters built from clothing scraps and building materials; there is even a colony creature, in which several dancers come together entangled like a Portuguese man o’ war. The set itself, with exposed back walls and scaffolding, feels organic, and as performers pass within this landscape you cannot help but be struck by how unique a production this is.
You’ll have noted by now that I haven’t done much to address the plot, or even describe characters (mirror excepted). It is because their roles are so unsettled. They love and cower, laugh and strike out as though controlled kaleidoscopically. The story itself is non-linear, and the divide between scenes fluid. Special mention must go to Valérie Doucet, whose contortions and manic manipulations (somehow reminiscent of The Evil Dead) left the audience gawping.
Tabac Rouge is an exceptional, inspiring feat of world-building and dramatic dance. It should not be missed.
4.5/5 stars
Tabac Rouge is playing at Sydney Theatre until Friday January 23 as part of Sydney Festival.
