Manipulate 2022: Acqua Alta, (Le) Pain & After Metamorphosis
We review three shows from this year's Manipulate festival which, despite a stripped-back COVID-affected programme, was still full of delights
Acqua Alta - The Crossing Of The Mirror (★★★★)
Manipulate describe themselves as offering audiences "rich visually led work" that "pushes boundaries, plays with form and challenges perceptions". With Acqua Alta, the virtual reality installation by the Lyon-based team Claire B and Adrien M, they've succeeded on all fronts.
Taking place in the narrow, unassuming space of the Dean's Office at Summerhall, the installation initially appears to be totally ordinary. A collection of flat, open sketchbooks and pop-up paper structures sit neatly displayed on a long table. The sketchbooks are filled with inky lines and shapes that aren't particularly eye-catching – the pop-ups, while immaculate, look like they could have been made by a particularly creative bored child in class. But under the lens of a digital device, the scenes transform. Suddenly, there is a connection between each object and drawing, and a story begins to be told.
Both artists deserve an immense amount of credit for this flawlessly designed and executed work. Depicting the odyssey of a tiny, inky couple whose house and bodies are swallowed by a swirling, swelling sea, the piece somehow manages to feel both delicate and epic. Credit too should go to Olivier Mellano for his atmospheric sound design, and to Dimitri Hatton and Satchie Noro for their choreography that forms the basis for the minature VR couple's elegant movements. As the installation ends, the phone is withdrawn and the stillness of the room falls back into place, it really does feel like you've just experienced a little sliver of magic. [EG]
After Metamorphosis (★★★★)
Franz Kafka's classic tale about alienation, isolation and the crushing burden of economic need is given a fittingly bizarre revamp by physical theatre artist Lewis Sherlock and performance writer Ali Maloney. In this thoroughly modern adaptation, Gregor Samsa is presented as an office drone; his slow transformation into an insect is all the more terrifying because you can't quite tell where the human ends and the bug begins.
Sherlock is fantastic as the alienated office worker/agitated creature, all jerky head movements and twitchy body twists, and the show's ingenuity lies in how well it ties together the surrealism of Kafka's material with the mundanity of everyday life. One particularly impressive scene sees Sherlock's Samsa, out on the town to attract a 'mate', performing a terrific robotic dance to a mangled version of a classic love song. Office supplies, such as staplers and projectors, are used ingeniously to create whole new worlds, sets and storylines. An inventive show that will make you see capitalism with a fresh pair of eyes. [EG]
(Le) Pain (★★★★)
Riffing on pain's French and English meanings, (Le) Pain invokes the minstrels and bards of old with its eclectic form of storytelling. Undoubtedly inspired by writer and performer Jean Daniel Broussé's adoration and study of medieval history, as well as his love for French instruments such as the Occitan graile and Cabrette, the show tells the story of a baker's son who may love his carbs but isn't going to follow the family lineage.
(Le) Pain brilliantly expresses the pressure of generational expectations and a small-village mindset. Tempering his acrobatic talents & experience as part of the team behind the acclaimed circus show KNOT, Broussé reigns in the explosive outbursts and movements for further into the piece. Shy, meek, and almost coy, (Le) Pain uses the metaphor of bread to capture the evolution of personhood, from ingredient to the dough and finally to hot-steaming wonder. [DC]