Four people giving a one-man-show? With Jérôme Bel there's no point in being too scrupulous if things don't go as expected. On Thursday evening at the Théâtre Métropolis the French dancer and choreographer staged a deliciously intelligent brainteaser concerning identity.
At first everything still seemed clear: the first performer, with round eyes behind his glasses was supposed to be Jérôme Bel. The second one, wearing tennis clothes and appearing right in the middle of a training session (which put the audience's teeth at risk) made out that he was André Agassi. The third one, with his famous question “To be or not to be” claimed to be Hamlet, while finally there was a woman called Susanne Linke who danced in her night dress in such a fascinating way . [….] Suddenly there were several Suzanne Linkes, even though, if truth be told, they were men dancing in white night dresses. The dissolution progressively gained ground, costumes were exchanged and soon the audience was no longer certain of ” who was playing who”. In the end, the four interpreters were reduced to pure symbols, and all that remained of the little cosmos was simply a human personality, just particles, which could be assumed to be everything, although they neither acted nor spoke.
Jérôme Bel's latest work (which is still “in progress” for the time being and is being presented for the first time to a Salzburg public) is infiltrated from start to finish with a charming wittiness. It shakes up our neurones and delights an alert public.
At first everything still seemed clear: the first performer, with round eyes behind his glasses was supposed to be Jérôme Bel. The second one, wearing tennis clothes and appearing right in the middle of a training session (which put the audience's teeth at risk) made out that he was André Agassi. The third one, with his famous question “To be or not to be” claimed to be Hamlet, while finally there was a woman called Susanne Linke who danced in her night dress in such a fascinating way . [….] Suddenly there were several Suzanne Linkes, even though, if truth be told, they were men dancing in white night dresses. The dissolution progressively gained ground, costumes were exchanged and soon the audience was no longer certain of ” who was playing who”. In the end, the four interpreters were reduced to pure symbols, and all that remained of the little cosmos was simply a human personality, just particles, which could be assumed to be everything, although they neither acted nor spoke.
Jérôme Bel's latest work (which is still “in progress” for the time being and is being presented for the first time to a Salzburg public) is infiltrated from start to finish with a charming wittiness. It shakes up our neurones and delights an alert public.
