Theatre / Bertrand Lesca
Review: Mayfest: Palmyra, Arnolfini
This was one of the most intense things I have ever seen in a theatre: a piece of dance and physical theatre so impactful that it raised ethical questions about how much symbolic violence it is reasonable to impose on an audience.
Attendees at the Arnolfini enacted, and indeed were implicated in, a deeply uncomfortable case study of dispossession, violence, domination and power. Bertrand Lesca and Nasi Voutsas’ performances invoked a real sense of jeopardy – where at one point I felt like we were just one choose-your-own-adventure-style audience decision away from escalation into actual physical harm.
All pics: Alex Brenner
Before entering we were presented with show notes stating: “The ancient city of Palmyra was one of the best preserved in the world…until ISIS gained control of the city, destroyed its temples, looted its graves and used its amphitheater to stage executions.” Knowing this context, the smattering of laughter from the audience at the opening ten minutes of clowning already felt almost inappropriate. Indeed, there was a dark edge of knowing cruelty to Nasi and Bertrand’s antagonistic fooling right from the start.
is needed now More than ever
We saw that these small resentments become a vindictive disequilibrium; chaotic destructive entropy spans out from elegant, harmonious movement. Nonetheless, whether they were dancing on a castor dolly or wrestling on the floor, there was a physical intimacy to Lesca and Voutsas’s interaction. The relationship was always one of simultaneous attraction and revulsion, driven forward by a libidinal masculine energy that was always ready to spill over into excess.
Palmyra was theatre that enacted, in abstract microcosm, the trauma unfolding right now in Syria. It invoked in me a sense of hopelessness about the slim possibilities for peace. It may be that this state is an appropriate response to a catastrophe which, having drilled hurt unimaginably deep, now seems desperately intractable.
However, the production offered two kernels of hope to counter paralysis. First, this production has been paired with a free community organising workshop this Saturday around practical ways to build a more welcoming city for refugees. The second hopeful thing was that, even under extreme duress, the audience at the Arnolfini refused to supply the performers with a hammer that seemed certain to be used for violence and intimidation.
At a time when Bristolians are occupying a rooftop in Filton in defiance of arms sales to the Turkish government, the possibility that we could resist the supply of weapons which fuel these horrors is a minimally hopeful one.
Palmyra continues at Arnolfini uintil Sun, May 20 as part of Mayfest. For more info, visit mayfestbristol.co.uk/shows/palmyra
Read more: Preview: Mayfest 2018
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