A single light appears, dancing, gliding effortlessly over the curtain until tumbling back into the darkness. It takes me a moment to figure out what I am seeing and just as I have realized that it is the reflection from a mirror, there is another flash. I see a face. I see an arm. I see a back. Contorted, awkward and grotesque, four bodies are assembled…

Based on the paintings of Francis Bacon, Body Fragments was created by the German company Theaterlabor. Prior to the show, I grabbed a (Swedish?) meatball and listened to artistic director Siegmar Schröder as he spoke about the company’s process, a method of collaborative development that relies as much on his own dreams and nightmares as on the actors’ physicality. Crediting the metaphysics of Artaud as a major source of inspiration, Schröder explained the company’s “research into the unknown,” describing rehearsals as, “a search for skills and thrills in new performance” that is “constantly surprising.” In discussing his directing style as sympathetic to the spectator he admitted, “I don’t like to get bored.”

Theaterlabor’s Body Fragments is a lean 60-minute piece that tenses its muscles and bares its teeth against audience boredom. It is a physical collage of tortured subjects in which four agile performers shape-shift from scene to scene, appearing to have been ripped from Francis Bacon’s canvases and dropped onto the stage kicking and screaming. Speaking minimally, save for a few artistic ruminations and a soundscape of gibberish, the performers push the limits of their bodies to emulate Bacon’s rendering of the raw form; the unholy figure at its most repulsive. The result is a precarious experience wherein the spectator is implored to recognize the truth of humanity in Bacon’s figures, tautly portrayed here with enthusiastic agony.

Schröder choreographs inspiring stage pictures, using lighting to masterfully multiply and cinematically blur the bodies at play. His imaginative staging is joyfully poignant, and captures the kinetic struggle of the source imagery. Scoring the production with persistently melodramatic electronic music does add a nagging tension that is mostly unnecessary though, and instead of adding to the excitement the music detracts considerably from the rhythm of the piece with gaps occurring between songs.

In his pre-show talk, Schröder spoke of a ‘dramaturgy of exhibition’ that has emerged through Theaterlabor’s works, often presented as live installations at museums or galleries. He asked, “what can theatre add to paintings,” and I wonder if he intended Body Fragments to so heavily muse on that question? After all, this piece was originally created for the 2005 Venice Biennale. The bringing-to-life of Bacon’s figures has immense dramatic potential as to the ability for them to interact, but I found that the performance evaded such communication. It did not transcend Bacon, but merely relish in portraying his anguished style, leaving the subjects adrift in their personal frames, isolated and on display.

Posted: February 26th, 2009 under Body Fragments, Laurel's Blogs.
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