The Glorious French Revolution, New Diorama Theatre Review
Photo by Marc Brenner
Written by Charlotte for Theatre and Tonic
Disclaimer: Gifted tickets in exchange for an honest review
Regardless of whether form or content are the matter at hand, Sam Ward’s latest performance piece is best described with a single word: radical. The Glorious French Revolution (or: why it sometimes takes a guillotine to get anything done) is a timely and disquieting black comedy, running through ‘five things you need to know about the French Revolution.’ Amidst jarringly patriotic French athletic attire and aptly deadpan signs labelling actors as simply ‘peasant’ or ‘king,’ the show opens with a simple, reverberating truth: ‘Things were really f*cking bad.’
In the spirit of blunt truths, Glorious French Revolution’s ensemble of actors could perhaps have used another day or two of rehearsal, with the show’s rapid and verbose dialogue tripping them up on occasion. Still, the show is as much physical theatre as it is spoken, and in that regard, the company hit their marks with fervour, stamina, and a healthy dose of organised chaos. Sha Dessi, for her part, delivers an American-western-flavoured Marquis de Lafayette who is as raucous as he is grisly, a not-so-subtle bit of intentional anachronism that well illustrates the production’s specific satirical language.
Hazel Low’s playful prop design is the game-defining piece of Ward’s twisted history lesson, and they deliver on the promise of a bouncy castle. But this playground is sinister, and in a moment a game of jumping the wall turns to mass hysteria, a ball pit becomes a body pile. Each second to the next could be a game, a joke, something trivial and absurd, but it could also be visceral, desperate, hungry. Perhaps it is always both and, like an optical illusion, it is up to the audience to see either a bit of childlike fun or a sickening tide of political violence through the cracks of strobe light and shadow.
If you subscribe to the mantra that art is inherently political, you have a seat at The Glorious French Revolution’s table, though it may not be the table you expect it to be. Ward, so it seems, does not seek to impart any easy or even cohesive answers to messy business of inequity and revolution; rather, he holds a funhouse mirror to the conflicts of the present, asking if the warped reflection makes them fundamentally different. Asking if the response was effective. If it was right. If it was necessary.
If it could be again.
At New Diorama Theatre until 14 December.
★★★★
