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The Avignon Festival 2006 - A Personal Encounter (Part IV)Reviews (9)Jacqueline Fletcher visits the 60th Avignon FestivalDateline: 27th August, 2006Sans Retour by François Verret Verret was one of Nadj's teachers during the early years in Paris and the links are evident. Sans Retour is a remarkable piece of visual theatre, dance theatre, based very loosely on the tale of Moby Dick. Working collaboratively on the choreography with the cast, Verret and the company had no intentions of creating a narrative structure that told the story of Captain Ahab's obsession and the disastrous consequences for his crew. Rather they regard the stage itself as a boat with a captain and crew, a microcosm for humanity embarking on an adventure and always entailing the risk that their director will be more or less an Ahab, a crazy, tyrannical, self-destructive egomaniac. The stage is a place where the forces of nature, interior as well as exterior, become visible. This theatrical adage, that the theatre is about making the invisible visible, was originally coined by Gordon Craig but has become a commonplace among modernist practitioners. Sans Retour speaks of the human condition in general, regards Ahab's obsession as one that pre-dates his acquaintance with the great white whale, one which is to one extent or another a part of us all. Sans Retour takes the notion of the voyage, the risks, the tempests, the collaborations and disputes, the exaltation and despair, as humanity's journey. It is humanity's struggle with (human) nature, and dark forces more powerful than the individual will. It was performed with an amazing dynamic and simple but almost overwhelming visual imagery. The performers gave 150% as they twisted and turned in the stream of light and air gushing from four massive wind machines. They leapt nimbly back and forth on narrow planks which could be dismantled and rearranged at will. They rocked frenetically and perilously on a curved piece of metal that evoked a tiny boat tossed by tempestuous seas. It was something of a tour de force. Verret regards the work as meaningful on many levels, a provocation that begs contemplation of some questions essential to our societies: it is not only about obsession, domination, possession, pursuit, but also about the bankruptcy of ideologies, the thirst for the absolute, the 'phantom of power', that is inherent in contemporary politics. This was a co-production with the Théâtre National de Bretagne and has touring dates in and around France until March 2007. If it comes your way, go and see it! >> Next
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