Live from UNIMA 2008: Review of Angel

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Angel is a performance by Duda Paiva Puppetry and Dance, a company based in the Netherlands. This Australian premiere was performed at the Rechabites’ Hall, and boy was it different from the way Diva was set up.

The large hall and been emptied of the rostra and flats that closed in the performance area to a small section, and instead we were offered the bare walls of the venue, warts and all. This may sound bad, but it was actually very fitting with Angel, and in fact heightened the mood of the show.

On the first entrance to the venue, what hits you first is the large amount of haze floating in the air, the dim blue and warm lights piercing down into the haze from upstage, and the hunched over and dirty man sitting at stage left. Along the floor are small rectangular patches of leaves, and the occasional prop, such as a tiny piano, a radio, and a few signs that ask for money. Centrestage is a small stone, with a foam cream angel statue almost keeling off of it. The dirty man, the sole performer Duda Paiva, is pretty much the essence of a homeless person; but a dimension is added as the homeless man in this case seems to be sun-addled, or at the very least affected by alcohol.

Lighting was excellent, combining some speckled gobos for that sun-dappled look, haze, front light, side lights, and a great sense of eeriness. In the venue, and despite the fact that I knew that the show was set in a cemetery, it felt to me more like the empty hall of an old stone church – one that no longer has a roof, or has parts of it falling apart, allowing that sun-dappled light to come through. It was very appealing.

(I honestly can’t remember much about the sound, but I do know that it was atmospheric and very appropriate to the eerie and dark setting)

The storyline is simple, yet complex. The homeless man befriends the angel statue, who comes to life, however the angel is not so angelic, and tries to steal the life of the homeless man (strangely enough, by kissing him, which sounds more humourous than it was – the show is actually very dark). The man and angel struggle, and finally come to an understanding… or so you think. The story seems to have come from Paiva’s trip to a cemetery one day, where he discovered an angel on a grave, which actually looked more angry than restful or heavenly.

The angel, which is a mouth puppet, is beautifully designed and operated by Paiva. All the way through the performance, I had Neville Tranter’s tips running through my mind, and everything that Paiva did fit in with what he had taught us. And it turns out that Tranter has been coaching the performer for this particular performance! The angel had a brilliantly simple voice, with Paiva making his homeless man a deep voice, while the angel had a higher, lighter voice. Even the darker moments of the angel were done exceptionally different from Paiva’s homeless man. I worked out that he was doing a bit of ventriloquism, in that Paiva spoke with a very wide mouth movement when playing the homeless man, while when he was speaking the dialogue of the angel, his mouth became narrower. This meant that you watched the angel, instead of Paiva’s mouth, when it was speaking; and when Paiva’s homeless man was speaking, you watched him and not the angel. It’s such a simple concept, but he did it extremely well, and if I hadn’t have been curious about it, I wouldn’t have noticed.

This performance wasn’t just about puppetry, but also about dance: the dance was carefully choreographed, and was a combination of modern dance and ballet. It was very poetic, but at times I felt as if the dancing didn’t quite suit the moment or the scene – especially at the start, when it was incongruous to me and what I expected of the show. However, in the scene where the man and the puppet fight – and I mean, quite struggle against one another in a life-or-death melee – Paiva combined poetic dancing with amazingly lifelike manipulation of the angel, from the angel ‘dragging’ the homeless man across the stage, to the homeless man strangling the angel in his arms, to swinging around the stage in large arcs. It was a particularly engrossing scene.

In fact, the whole show was engrossing. At the start of the performance, Paiva breaks the fourth wall and asks for alms from the audience. This fourth wall is quickly replaced once the angel/homeless man interaction starts. However, towards the end of the show, Paiva has subdued the angel, and offers to take a photo of it with a member of the audience. I thought that the show had finished, and he was simply inviting the audience to experience a ‘behind-the-scenes’ moment with his puppet. But this was actually a neat little trick to wake you out of the world of the cemetery, and allow you to fully be surprised with the ending. I found this moment at first jarred with me, but then I realised how fully I had been concentrating on the previous scenes, and found the whole experience to be like when you wake out of a meditation. And that means that I was fully engrossed with the performance, and not bored or wandering – which is always a good thing!

At first, when Paiva is talking to the audience at the start, I felt that the small audience (maybe 30 people in a venue that seats 100+) was too small and too cold emotionally, to really allow an energised and passionate performance to be created. There was nothing for Paiva to bounce off of. However, I soon got proven wrong. The show literally livened up when the angel came to life, and literally seemed to lose its oomph when the angel dies, or stops being manipulated. The angel really is the breath of this performance, and has such a wonderfully overpowering, mischievous and devious personality, that when Paiva was on stage ‘on his own’, the space felt empty.

This dark performance was performed with energy, passion, and with a true talent for puppet manipulation. I have to say, I didn’t expect the dance to work so well, but in the end, even that I had to love. The audience, though small, loved it too, and Paiva got a huge clap afterwards. This has to be one of my favourite shows of the festival!

My vote: (6 UNIMA stars out of 5)

I won’t have time tomorrow to post anything, as I check out in the morning, so I’ll be adding a short entry for tomorrow. Please check back later for it. UPDATE: Read the next post here.

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