Theatre Design & Technology - Fall 1999 - 25

circus attitude. Amusician can present a program of pieces, each with a different emotional
color or explicit content, without anr need to
justi~' the choices as the result of one characteristic point of view. In a similar way the
FormanJDromesko company offers a program
of situations, images, and experiences which
form a concert, with no suggestion that the
performers are impersonating any characters
other than their own.
The reason the show's title mentions soup
is that about halfway through the night a huge
cauldron of stew was rolled in, and it was time
to eat. Thars when we found out the reason for
numbering each table. The person who had
written on the table with chalk easily became
our table's stew-fetcher, and brought us a full
tureen and ladle. We passed each other plates
of bread, crumbled cheese into our excellent
stew, and talked to our tablemates in French,
Czech, English. and whatever else necessary.
~ot only \rere we sharing comfort and sustenance, but we had already shared some unusual and memorable experiences and images.
so COI1\'ersation \ras no problem. There certainly was a "demolition" of the usual walls between audience members, and between
audience and performer when the company
members found places to sit and eat at tables
all around the room.
The whole meal \ras unhurried, and
seemed to take as much time as people \ranted
to spend. We \rere all sharing a real meal. ~. e
\rere hungry, and there was lots of time and
lots of food. When it did come time to clear
tables, stack dishes, and clean up, we all
joined in, following the very earnest and verr
funny instructions by the brothers. It was like
being at summer camp.
T\rQ observations occurred to the technician in me. One was that the "demolition" of
barriers that the company strove for \ras accomplished by means of constructing something which enabled that to happen. i.e. The
Hut and all its parts. The whole bUilding including bar, plumbing, and effects knocks
down and transports on a flatbed truck. The
Hut is, at once, the theatre, the scenery, a character, and the framework which takes the
place of a plot in the companr's production.

The second observation was that, although the evening reverberates in my memory
as an unforgettable collection of charged images, all of those images were created by real
objects and people; real, tangible things taking
up space and time while I watched them. Thi ,
I think, contributes to the strength of the
memories of the images. There \ras a sequence
which was on film, but I think the lasting image
from that sequence was not the on-screen picture of the brothers boxing at age thirteen, but
---...........

that of Petr dutifully picking up the running
projector and moving it, the little projector
table, and the extension cord closer to people
who \ranted to \ratch, while the movie on the
wall got more and more distorted. Great images.
I hope that sharing my pleasure at seeing
one production, part of the side programming
of PQ'99, will inspire readers to attend the
next PQ, in 2003, with the expectation that they
too will discover something that excites them
as much La Baraque did me. *:.

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - Fall 1999