La Mexicaine de Perforation: Jacques Lecoq is dead — Is Philippe Gaulier?
Phalex: GO SEE THIS SHOW!…for 5 minutes…then leave. Spoiler alert: Best joke: (spoken with a French dialect worthy of Inspector Clouseau) “Vancou-vair. When I say this word, my mouth makes the same shape as when I vomit.” It’s mostly downhill from there.
Alex: You think you’re pretty clever, Phalex, but the producers are going to pull that first sentence out of context and use it in their press materials: “GO SEE THIS SHOW” — Phalex, Plank Magazine.
Phalex: Oops.
Alex: I find your criticism disrespectful. Don’t you realize that the two companies that created this show emerged from Ecole Philippe Gaulier?
Phalex: Is that a clown school?
Alex: You’re rude.
Phalex: I’m just asking! Does it have something to do with Ecole Lecoq?
Alex: Jacques Lecoq is dead!
Phalex: Okay, but wasn’t Gaulier Lecoq’s assistant at one point?
Alex: Clown school. Really. Look, here in the program it says —
Phalex: Let me see that. Oh, yeah, it says, “…a dash of clown and a sprinkle of bouffon, a spoonful of tragedy…” blah blah…
Alex: Look, the least you could do is tell the reader what the show is about.
Phalex: What it’s about is irrelevant. It’s a lame set up for some mostly unsuccessful slapstick, physical comedy routines that lack originality, laboured jokes, bad sexual puns, and less than marvelous costume changes.
Alex: But the physical work was good!
Phalex: It was good. Except when it wasn’t.
Alex: You’re cold man.
Phalex: You think the plot and situation were important?
Alex: No, you’re right. The artists weren’t concerned with the convention of story in a theatrical sense, not at all. Philippe Gaulier, with whom these artists have trained, says that he doesn’t teach theatre, he “teaches the dream of theatre, which is surrounded by the ghost of theatre.”
Phalex: Actually, that’s a beautiful idea. Gaulier also talks about the history of bouffon, in which the “ugly people” of renaissance France, who were banished “to the swamps”, would be brought out to perform for the aristocracy, or the “beautiful people”, during festivals. They would attack the leaders of society. So why do these artists invoke bouffon and Gaulier? Sure, the performers in this show displayed some physical skill, but dressing up as an obese Parisian cop and deftly performing a pratfall doesn’t push any buttons for me. It was just another empty cliché. Nothing ugly about it. Nothing dangerous. Nothing offensive. This was the Canadian Air Farce of Bouffon.
Alex: So you’re saying it wasn’t worthy?
Phalex: The artists weren’t worthy of themselves. They betrayed their own artistic aims by failing to be dangerous, by remaining congenial. They didn’t push themselves. They’re not taking asking anything — of themselves. And so they aren’t asking anything of us.
La Mexicaine de Perforation is a co-production of Trepan Theatre (Calgary) and Aitherios Theatre (UK). Directed by Nathan Pronyshyn. Written by Aaron Coates in collaboration with Cheryl Hutton, Rew Lowe, Nathan Pronyshyn. Set Design by Terry Gunvordahl. Sound Design by Kristoffer Benoit. Cast: Aaron Coates, Cheryl Hutton, Rew Lowe.
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