As part of the annual ‘Voila! Europe Festival', performance artists and clowns, Estonian Julia Masli and Norwegian Viggo Venn, were originally meant to perform live at the Cockpit Theatre. Owing to the recent lockdown however, they have had to make major adaptations to make their show ‘We Missed You’, a purely online experience for their audiences.
Fortunately much of the original show consisted of video footage taken during the first lockdown. Dressed as the well-known Commedia dell'Arte characters Harlequin and Pierrot, the award-winning duo set out in the tradition of the genre to entertain people in ‘town squares’ in the form of “playful, magical and socially distanced performances, to lift the spirits of local people”; these moments of connection and community filmed to make up the central component of their show.
The ‘town squares’ of 2020 lockdown Lambeth in South London, took the form of the gardens of St Thomas’s Hospital, a local side street, a tunnel underneath Waterloo Bridge, Brixton Market and a Lambeth housing estate, whereby unsuspecting members of the public were treated to a whole host of clown-like comedic spectacles, that were relayed as a series of vignettes. After ‘parachuting’ out of a plane to land in the hospital grounds by way of some clever special effects, we saw a hospital nurse joining in with some ludicrous dance moves and riding of cardboard merry-go-round horses, much to the delight of local onlookers, the camera zooming in through a window where we saw other hospital staff waving from behind a row of ‘thank you’ cards. Next they were seen nailing a skull and crossbones to traffic signs with a white flag and long piece of string - the police rocking up and leaving, a passer-by joining in with some ‘belly dancing moves’, and another filming the proceedings. In a second street, they jumped out at other people and instigated a chase - several joggers looking rather nonplussed but a shopper rising to the bait, with hysterical enthusiasm! Later a disco ball was hung up in the tunnel underneath Waterloo Bridge with members of the public persuaded to strut their stuff with our dynamic duo at this mini nightclub; followed by a ridiculous but nonetheless highly entertaining ‘skit’ as Venn and Masli dressed as a market stallholder and an escaping tomato causing slapstick chaos, much to the delight of other stallholders and shoppers in the vicinity. This was crosscut with scenes filmed in an apartment (which presumably replaced the live Cockpit Theatre stage): one being of the artistes cutting and eating tomatoes with great relish, as their costumed alter-egos stood and watched with envy.
This was an eye-popping, entertaining hour with the footage interspersed with some clever graphics - and a narrative about not being able to perform live which worked really well, considering the time they would have had to adapt to the changing government guidelines. This was theatre that was immediate, immersive and truly spontaneous - which of course in a ‘live’ sense had already happened - the ‘real’ audience being the passers-by, responding with visible joy at a particularly joyless time in our recent history. The ending was a little abrupt - although we were spared the technical hitches of the night before, we were told. But these two have done much to bring us an endearingly funny and very important show, proving in spades how very important the Arts are to all of us - not least in these unprecedented times.
Reviewer - Georgina Elliott
on - 15.11.20
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