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Aug 11 2025
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Theatre Re’s The Nature of Forgetting at Edinburgh Fringe 2025!

By Jo Tomalin

Review by Jo Tomalin
For All Events

The Nature of Forgetting

What does a piece of clothing mean to a person? Is it the color or comfort it gives – or something else? Memories are special to all of us and dementia means that they may become fragments of what they were originally.


We first see coat racks, tables and chairs, and a young woman and a man, Isabella and Tom. They interact and eventually Tom – sensitively played by Theatre Re Founder and Artistic Director Guillaume Pigé – remembers what to do as he puts on a coat or a jacket…flashbacks tell the story. Tom’s memories are vivid as he goes back in time to school days, friends and teenage romance – all brought to life by the dynamic cast of four actors who play all the characters.
 
Live music onstage comprising a drummer and keyboardist play vibrant to melodic music that underscores and adds dimension to this mainly wordless devised play. Gentle yet vivid music plays while Tom remembers earlier times in his life and varying volume, tempo and rhythms support the storytelling well. This early scene is beautifully created and is the foundation for the story of The Nature of Forgetting.



Seamless transitions and the quality of the physical and visual storytelling form an exceptionally well crafted and performed show.
 A scene of Tom with his mother helping him get ready for school and the subsequent journey supported by rhythmic music is strong imagery. The cast of four actors create several characters with gestures and posture changes to delineate them through their movement dynamics effectively.


When things go off kilter the very smart choices of a combination of awkward movement with sound, that build progressively, show how Tom’s memory is being affected. This series of episodic movement is subtle yet arresting in its simplicity and poignancy. A tender and lively scene with an outstanding movement sequence is when Tom is younger and is swept off his feet by a woman – it’s a glorious and evocative moment of a full life experiencing all that life offers.


Lighting helps to suggest atmosphere and mood really well and brief sound effects evoke the time and place. Tom incorporates interesting quirky movement and gesture as an adult and stops and starts as the movement device affecting his memory seems to disconnect it and be frustrating to Tom. This scene is particularly moving and well crafted.


Theatre Re take their time to tell this story and the cast emote physically and emotionally with expressive and precise movement and gestures. The range of emotional moments come from unexpected moments from Theatre Re – when less accomplished work will use literal thinking on which to base gestures. This play is extraordinarily well developed and performed and is a masterclass of story crafting and refinement. Poignant, moving and wildly inventive devised theatre that is dramatic, emotive artistic and human. This heartfelt exploration of a difficult subject has it all. Exceptional! 5 Stars!

More Information:
https://www.theatrere.co.uk/

Feb 13 2013
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Avner the Eccentric: Physical Theatre

By Jo Tomalin
(Above) Avner the Eccentric

The AMAZING Avner the Eccentric…

Review by Jo Tomalin

Avner the Eccentric

Avner the Eccentric performed his one-man show Exceptions to Gravity on January 29, 2013 at the Bankhead Theatre, Livermore Valley Performing Arts Center. It was a wonderful opportunity to see this world-class international master of physical comedy in an all too rare San Francisco Bay Area appearance.

 

Avner arrives as a janitor character busy sweeping the stage – aware of the audience he sits down to watch a show, but he is, unwittingly, the show. After a few moments looking at the audience he decides to juggle items he finds onstage such as baseball bats and a peacock feather. Sometimes he loses his hat or gets caught up in his clothing but he finds charming and clever solutions to each challenge.

Avner the Eccentric
(Photo: Marie Clauzade)

Later, he picks up a tall stack of paper cups and they seem to have a mind of their own as they bend and go out of reach, then one of his arms appears longer than the other…but again he finds a unique and entertaining resolution. Avner juggles, drops, defies gravity and plays with many other objects (and a few people), while the audience is totally absorbed in his fun and innocent world, laughing, oohing and aahing at his antics.

Avner the Eccentric

Oh, there’s something else, Avner the Eccentric never speaks a word. This is a silent theatrical clown show and Avner uses his physicality, eyes, facial expressions and timing so skillfully that he transcends language and cultural barriers – everyone understands what’s happening, especially if it seems like an impending threat (to him). In fact, the audience of adults and children enjoy this complicity, when the performer – and they – discover the situations Avner gets himself into quite accidentally and appreciate his creative ways out.

Avner the Eccentric

Avner is not only an expert clown, highly skilled at non-verbal physical communication, but he is also a magician. After an hour or so, Avner performed his Pièce de résistance – a special treat for the audience- Avner’s magical meal that playfully transforms itself unpredictably – and it thrilled everyone! Avner is brilliant and this was a fabulous ending to his show.

Interacting with the audience is the key to theatrical clowning and there is none better than Avner. He performed his one-man show Avner the Eccentric for a season on Broadway and co-starred in Lincoln Center’s production of Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors. In addition to acting in various other plays, TV appearances, film, and international tours, Avner directs and teaches workshops for aspiring and professional theatrical clowns. Check out his Schedule for where you can find him performing or teaching next – Avner the Eccentric‘s show is a must see for everyone!

For more information:
Avner the Eccentric: http://www.avnertheeccentric.com
Bankhead Theatre – LVPAC: http://www.mylvpac.com

   Jo Tomalin Reviews Physical Theatre, Dance and Movement Performances

Jo Tomalin, Ph.D.
More Reviews by Jo Tomalin
Critics World
www.forallevents.com

Dec 11 2012
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Image of Company members of Mummenschanz at Cal Performances November 23-25, 2012. PHOTO: Gerry Born

Mummenschanz: Physical Theatre

By Jo Tomalin

 

Mummenschanz returns to Cal Performances November 23-25, 2012. (Above) Photo: Gerry Born

The Fantastical World of Mummenschanz

image of Mummenschanz Photo Credit: Gerry Born

Mummenschanz
Photo Credit: Gerry Born

The celebrated physical theatre company’s latest show “40 Years of Mummenschanz” performed on November 23 – 25, 2013 at Cal Performances, Zellerbach Hall, Berkeley. Mummenschanz is a world class company based in Switzerland, that tours internationally and last performed at Zellerbach in 2010.

This show is not to be missed! Why? Well Mummenschanz creates life out of anything inanimate – such as every day objects – using fabric, plastic, tubes, wires and boxes to create large shapes and forms that embody human characteristics and communicate non-verbally. This completely silent show comprises almost thirty different visual sketches and is not only clever when bringing the objects to life, but the creators, Floriano Frassetto, Bernie Schürch – the current Artistic Directors – and the late Andres Bossard experimented during the early 1970s with different objects to explore the full extent of the characters, their physicality, movement vocabulary and emotions. These qualities are appreciated by the audience because each sketch follows through a range of movement and precise manipulation, challenging the simplicity of the objects to reveal a depth of meaning through imaginative play that’s magical.

This year’s show “40 Years of Mummenschanz” is exactly that – a feast of sketches developed during the company’s lifetime, with old favorites and newer creations, wonderfully performed by the international cast of Floriana Frassetto, Philipp Egli, Raffaella Mattioli and Pietro Montandon. The stage is often dark with strategically placed dramatic lighting design by Jan Maria Lukas, which beautifully highlights the objects as they move and react. In fact, many people return to see a Mummenschanz show more than once, because their fantastical world is so unique and entertaining.

Where else can you see a surreal pair of giant hands open the curtains or walk off the stage to play with the audience? Or what about an orange fluffy ball that enlarges slowly, comes alive as if it has eyes, then rolls, tumbles and flops trying to mount a platform, while gaining the empathy of the audience? Imagine a taller than human size bendy tubular yellow slinky sliding around the stage throwing and catching a large red ball – then interacting with the audience…Mummenschanz creates the impossible!

Image of Mummenschanz Photo Credit: Pia Zanetti

Mummenschanz
Photo Credit: Pia Zanetti

 

In another brilliant sketch, rolls of blue toilet paper become features on a mask – that transition as the actor wearing all black tears off pieces to make a scarf. Then a pink toilet paper mask character comes in, they play and try to outdo each other – culminating in a sweet romantic moment as “blue” cries tears, by pulling off squares of paper from his toilet roll eyes, then deftly creates a bouquet by picking up all the paper on the floor for “pink”.

 

After the intermission, bubble plastic floats in green lighting to shapeshift to become fish and then fireflies; black light figures become Cocteau like silhouettes of sexy legs and profile faces, and a small crinkled shape grows into a huge boulder and rolls down towards the audience tantalizingly…and more.

Look out for Mummenschanz next time and expect the unexpected and a wonderful sensory experience for all the family to enjoy.

More information and tickets:

Jo Tomalin
Critic World
www.forallevents.com

Sep 28 2012
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Ionesco’s Rhinocéros: Physical Theatre

By Jo Tomalin

Cast of Rhinocéros
(Photo Credit: Jean Louis Fernandez)

Opening night of Eugène Ionesco’s absurdist metaphoric play “Rhinocéros” on September 27th at Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall for Cal Performances was an intense evening of theatre, inventively directed by Emmanuel Demarcy-Mota.

Demarcy-Mota brings this boldly staged production on its debut tour of three US cities – Los Angeles, Berkeley and Ann Arbor, which originated in Paris at the illustrious Théâtre de la Ville.

Ionesco’s play foreshadows fascism and conformity in Europe and this production is a vibrant physically acted philosophical debate of the consequences.

The play takes place in a small village in France on a Sunday morning when a villager turns into a rhinoceros without warning – followed by others. Whether one knows the background of the author’s intent or not when watching it, the audience experiences something very powerful by the end of this one hour forty five minute production, in French with English supertitles and no intermission.

Serge Maggiani plays Berenger, the everyman character of the story. He is inebriated for the first part of the play, hapless, workshy and seemingly unaffected by the effects of conforming to the crowd. As the play progresses, he shows his human emotions and is endearing as the audience empathizes with his situation. Maggiani’s Berenger gets under your skin slowly and brilliantly – his last speech at the end of the play is riveting.

Hugues Quester as Berenger’s friend, Jean is outstanding in his tour de force scene with Maggiani, which is one of the most poignant moments of the play. The cast of thirteen actors features Valérie Dashwood as Daisy, Philippe Demarle as Dudard, and Gérald Maillet as The Logician.

Cast of Rhinocéros (Photo Credit: Jean Louis Fernandez)

Cast of Rhinocéros (Photo Credit: Jean Louis Fernandez)

 

Cast of Rhinocéros (Photo Credit: Jean Louis Fernandez)

Cast of Rhinocéros (Photo Credit: Jean Louis Fernande

 

 

Demarcy-Mota directed his cast to develop and incorporate physical theatre choices such as the contrast between the physical fluidity of Berenger and the slow movement of background characters or sharper movement and gestures of some of the villagers as they fervently discuss logic…

…choreographed sways and twists of the ensemble across the stage…

…chairs held exaggeratedly high in the air to protect themselves; the unison outstretched physical reactions of the ensemble in the office (see top photo), and the wonderfully illogical yet metaphorically appropriate stylized movement in the scene when suspended office workers are cleverly entangled and connected to each other’s arms and legs to avoid falling – or worse.

Cast of Rhinocéros (Photo Credit: Jean Louis Fernandez)

Superb artistic design from the creative team supports the director’s fresh look vision resulting in a unified strength and completeness.

Set and Lighting Design by Yves Collet was dramatic, moody and kept surprising the audience when what seemed like a simple set of a bar suggested by twenty chairs and several background panels transformed to reveal a building of sterile flats which also became an office on the upper level. These slick visual changes provided points of rhythm change for the play as the story unfolded – and the stakes increased.

Music by Jefferson Lembeye ranged from wonderfully disturbing violin and cello sounds, ominous  pressure-like pulsations, sharp electric sounds – to the earth-shaking rumbling of a rhinoceros.

Corinne Baudelot’s costumes for the ensemble became more stylized as the physical theatre style developed in the office scenes, where everyone wore black suits, white shirts and red ties. Jean’s black leather coat for his transformation scene was an eerie and inspired choice.

This is a first class production and is well worth seeing.

Rhinocéros plays at Zellerbach Hall, Cal Performances – September 27th to 29th 2012.

For more information and tickets:
Cal Performances, Berkeley
Théâtre de la Ville, Paris

Jo Tomalin Ph.D.
Critics World
Forallevents.com