As a bit of a Francophile, I was attracted by the title and of course the description of this show about a French vegetarian village that succumbs to excessive pork eating following the appearance of two strangers in their midst. Apart from the Bretonese tops worn by the cast, there was nothing French about it apart of course from the title. French are not renowned for their vegetarianism, so we were off to a strange start.
There was a relentless beating as you entered the Warren at Zoo Roxy and it was to this, on the shabby looking set, that the group appeared doing their well choreographed and co-ordinated sly and shame- faced blood smearing movements.
The transformation on stage of the two female actors to become the gross villagers /strangers was clumsy and time consuming with the male actors having their backs to audience. It is laudable and worthy to recycle but these costumes were hideous. They’re meant to be, I hear you say. Yes, but rolled up paper in old tights looks just that, though the faces were quite effective. It was peculiar puppetry for the actors/puppeteers as the held heads looked cumbersome. The play’s narrative was given through a radio broadcast which seems like a clever idea, but a text should speak for itself and the ‘broadcast’ was a bit tricky to understand with words running into each other and not enough pacing in the speech.
The electric guitar, drums and keyboard were played in the background providing macabre sounds to accompany the strange goings on. The inevitable revenge happens when the last pig gets eaten but it was difficult to suspend disbelief when the victim’s innards are made of thinly disguised old newspaper. That’s not to say that props should be utterly realistic. This is theatre, after all, but this was just a bit too rough and ready. In balance, the cardboard carcass of the ‘last pig’ was pretty impressive.
More laborious de-costuming and the initial group movements done in reverse brought the show to an end. Another reviewer said that this was a talented young company and indeed they are but this show just didn’t work. The company seems to be successful as children’s puppeteers but this first venture into adult puppetry may have been over ambitious. There was a strong performance from the female actor who wore the red cardigan and played the ‘murderer’. Her body language displayed strong acting skills. There was also a lack of humour and even the darkest piece should display some of that. Bacon sandwich anyone?
August 05-20 £7.50