Live performance 1 –Zhuoya Li
Recently I watch a play called Forty years of silence, performed by Philippe Bizot. It is in a very tiny little theater, holding only about forty to fifty people. Once everyone get inside the theater, the lights are immediately turned off. People are reminded time and again to turn off or silence their phones during the play, and I can totally recognize the importance of doing that.
The first part is all about personal performance. These are all separate parts so that every single part is a distinct story. There are so many of them and I can only remember few of them.
At the beginning of the play, there is a chair at the center of the stage lighted by dim blue lights. Philippe the performer is sitting on that chair, hands and feet connected to four side of the square ceiling by four ropes. Suddenly, the music is on and he begins to express the theme of escaping and struggling. He is twisting his body as if he were trying to escape from some horrible detention. He uses his gesture and expression to make us feel that those ropes do imprison him and stop him from being free. He is not really using his strength, but we are all convinced that it takes considerable amount of power for him to escape. Finally, he gets one of the rope away from one of his arms. We can feel that he is getting better than before. His movement is lighter and his expression is not that ferocious anymore. After some more struggles, he gets one more of the his hands off the rope. Finally he frees himself from all of the four ropes, and he dances around to express his delight.
There are some other performances that I find truly amazing. One is that he pretends himself to be in a glass box. Even though there is nothing on the stage, he can make all of the audience to believe that he is trapped by glasses. He uses his hands to search for an exit on those walls. His hands are all on the same plane as if there were a wall for him to touch. Another is about people taking selfie when they travel. He pretends to be a tourist holding his cell phone to take selfies. He shows all kinds of hilarious expressions in front of the camera even though he might just quarrel with someone who stepped on his feet. He tightens up his body to show there are more and more people around him, but he is still grudgingly makes the brightest expressions.
The performance is not just about expressing what is already designed, it also test the ability to improvise. Philippe spends about thirty minutes performing what the audience ask him to perform. One audience ask him act like a father who is waiting for his child’s birth. The starting is nothing special: a father anxiously waiting outside the room, smoking cigarettes one by one. Then he gets a baby from a supposed nurse. He looks overjoyed and caresses his child. Then there is another child coming from a nurse. There is a bit of surprised on his face, but he soon adjusted his position and hold two babies together. Then there is the third child which makes him looks like a clown of holding three children at the same time. Then there is the fourth, and he has to get a stroller to put all of them in it. When the fifth comes out, he gets the child from the nurse, turn around, and throw the invisible baby like a basketball straight to the invisible stroller. All of audience laughs and I sincerely admire his creativity.
It is a truly fascinating performance. Philippe Bizot uses his body language with no words to express various kinds of scenarios and emotions. Besides his outstanding performance, his creativity and his vivid imitation prove his long time of accumulation and experience. If I ever got a chance, I’ll definitely watch his play again.