Low Down
Kamer 303 gives a few glimpses into the life of a woman who is unable to differentiate between her past and her present, and seems to be living in the interstices between the two. The liminality of her existence is surrounded with and limited by the space she occupies, her body, the room and her dog are her only companions in her solitude.
Review
A basement theatre performance carries with it some basic suggestions of what a theatre goer can expect. As we walk down the stairs in the dark, we are not encouraged in any way to think otherwise. There is no one to show us the way with a torch or present us with a brochure. The space is not contrived to appear transformed or ‘staged’ in any way at all. We have entered a room which is inhabited by a woman and it is here where we will be witnesses to a few moments of her life.
The room is lit in an absolutely non-dramatic way. It is an archive of the past and so is the body of the performer (Nele Van den Broeck). Both are alive with pulsating memories, and every moment of contact with either evokes a visceral sensation, in the actress as well as the audience. Covering every inch of the performance area, crawling, walking, wriggling, lying down, sitting upright, the actress becomes one with the space. The pathos in her voice and the surrounding emptiness of the room produce a melancholy that one could associate with lost relationships and broken dreams. She is unable to distinguish between her past and present and longs for the non-present. Her solitude must have lasted for long enough, as even her dog (Zina) seems to have become used to her ramblings and is not shocked by her unusual behaviour.
Shunning any traditional preoccupation with authority of the spoken word, the actress begins to mumble at first. Her use of almost incomprehensible phrases, which are sometimes reduced to merely sounds, seem to challenge the understanding that demands a rational explanation for human behaviour. Attempting to break the hierarchy between body and mind, she speaks with her body and communicates through emotions.
The performance creates a dialectical space where distinctions between the ‘material’ body and the body in representation become blurred; the body of the woman is not just an object to be represented but also the medium through which she chooses to represent an image of herself. When she is performing, her body is undeniable. Her body’s material presence is the very condition of the circumstance it is in. Dressed in a black and white knee-length dress, the large movements of the actress’s limbs are not restricted by it. She defies representing herself as an object of desire by destroying any perceived ideas about the female body as a sexualised object, and instead asserts bodily pleasure through gesture and its possibilities for movement. She is the one to desire and to bemoan―but not as a victim.
Even with its potential to be really subversive, I felt the play just fell short of going that one step further. After a few minutes, the audience seemed to get used to the idea of this as a spectacle and began to indulge themselves in voyeuristic pleasures. The performance does not do enough to jolt us out of that comfort zone completely. I wanted it to engage me further and not just speak at me. However, this is moving and fascinating piece, with out doubt worth seeing.
Reviewed by Swati Arora 5 September 2010 Website :http://www.amsterdamfringefestival.nl/fringe/en/programme/fringe-2010/kamer-303.aspx |
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