SLAVA’S SNOW SHOW. Written and created by Slava Polunin. Directed by Victor Kramer, with Slava Polunin, Ivan Volkov, Georgy Deliev, Jeff Johnson, Artem Zhimolokhov, Onofrio Colucci, Oleg Lugovsky, Fedor Makarov, Robert Saralp and others. At Artscape Theatre until Sunday. TRACEY SAUNDERS reviews
THE scattering of flakes of white paper strewn amongst the seats is the first indication that this may not be your ordinary evening at the theatre.
As the lights dim a blue hue descends over the auditorium and eclipses the stage as a man dressed in an outlandish yellow outfit ambles slowly and deliberately on to the stage.
This is no ordinary man however, this is Slava, Slava Polunin in his role as Assissiai, the most famous clown in Russia who has travelled to 120 countries since creating this show in 1993.
He speaks of “a theatre of hopes and dreams, suffused with longing, premonitions and disillusions” and he recreates just that in a tender and humorous exploration of life, love and memory.
Throw away your child hood recollections of bumbling attempts of strange men trying desperately to be funny.
This is the zenith of clowning and Slava and his cast enchant and beguile with their gentle and evocative performances. Onofrio Colucci one of the cast quotes a phrase from the Nobel Prize winning writer Henrich Böll when asked about his motivation, “I am a clown, I collect instances”. This is a collection of instances of sadness and twinklings of delight.
There is no recognizable language in the production but it isn’t silent.
In a telephonic conversation with himself, using an oversized inflatable telephone there is some dialogue in a dialect that nobody and everybody can understand. Younger members of the audience will be confounded by the rotary dial telephones which are used to enact a conversation of yearning and loss and bitter sweet good byes but those of a certain age will nod in recognition at the clumsy dialling sans a mobile connection.
As he gently replaces the receiver and waves good bye he captures the pain of loss in one thoughtful gesture.
Each and every movement is consequential – the delicate grasping of fingers, the arching of an eyebrow, and the wiggle of a hip are all executed with careful consideration. This is the body as amplifier using a lexicon of gestures to tell a story punctuated by sheer silliness.
Slava’s trademark yellow costume is oversized and shabby and his movements appear grandiose as it balloons around him. His eye make up is a smudgy grey rather than the traditional white circles which lend his face a mournful and woe begotten air. As he looks out in to the audience it feels as if he is looking directly at you, and only you.
In each vignette he grows more endearing and the cast join him one by one or sometimes all together in a frenzied rush heralded by appropriate marching band music.
There are fish and a ship and brooms and bubbles and a cacophony of craziness erupts on the stage in fits of risible antics. Charlie Chaplin once said “To truly laugh, you must be able to take your pain, and play with it,” something that this pratfall of clowns achieves with sublime mastery.
The escape from childhood terrors and adult nightmares is embarked upon through snow and over waves with only the imagination as a compass. Fears are cast away in to the sea, blown skyward in an immense bubble and ultimately swept off the stage with playful delight.
In one exquisite moment a rocking horse appears on the stage, evoking a poignant nostalgia.
The spectacular props and technological wizardry which result in streams of bubbles filling up the stage, a snow blizzard blasting the auditorium and giant inflatable balls bouncing though the audience are an added bonus.
There are cobwebs that stretch for metres and general mayhem and magic.
Adults sanctioned to play grabbed the permission with both hands and squealed with joy as they threw balls and dodged water sprays.
It is nigh impossible to explain the design and stagecraft that results in these tangible and tactile embodiments of the thoughts created on stage.
I prefer to maintain the magic and not know the intricacies, but I heard my inner voice of insatiable curiosity asking “How on earth did they do it?”
The design isn’t all smoke and mirrors and extravagant gestures though.
The gentleness of a moon balloon, the comic antics induced by a the sway of a suspended blue rubber ball offer counterpoints of simplicity and mirror the subtlety of the performances.
The extraordinary costumes provide a similar composition of simple complexity.
Aside from the bright yellow jumpsuits there are clowns dressed in distressed green overcoats wearing peculiar hats with vertical extended ear flaps.
As they walk they shed snow flakes in their wake and artfully dodge the oncoming clown in a delightfully choreographed soft shoe shuffle.
The additional unseen cast member is the music .From Dubinnikov and Beethoven to Jorge Ben and Vangelis the sound-scape roars through the space and when you aren’t being transfixed by the visual spectacular you are carried away on the intense waves of sound.
Slava’s Snow Show is a gratifying combination of the absurd anarchy of Chaplin and the silent eccentricity of Marcel Marceau imbued with the sensibility of Haruki Marukami.
It is more than theatre while capturing the very essence of theatre, the sublime magic of performance and suspended belief. It will carry you to the memory bank of your childhood and cast you adrift on hitherto undiscovered shores of your imagination.
The bells and whistles are a feast for the senses, but it’s the simple authenticity at the heart of the piece that will truly move you to tears.
My departure from the theatre was reluctant at the end of the experience, but such is the magic that you carry it with you as you enter the “real world.”
The sense of wonder and delight was still with me when I awoke, still sifting those small scraps of white paper from my hair.
l Matinees are on Saturday and Sunday. Book: 0861 915 8000, or www.computicket.co.za