Victor ou les enfants au pouvoir

Victor au les enfants au pouvoir was one of the stranger shows that I have seen. It reminded me a lot of The Odyssey that I watched last year in a way the the set was very unique, the performance style was very post modernistic and that I didn't understand what was going on most of the time. The show was written Roger Vitrac (a surrealist french playwright), directed by Emmanuel Demarcy-Mota and was performed by a french company called "Theatre de la ville". The play was created with a theatre of cruelty type of approach. There were many examples of theatre of cruelty apparent to me (although I am still trying to wrap my head around the whole concept of theatre of cruelty). There were many forms of violent in the play such as the use of power tools during the bedroom scene. The character of Victor is also a very violent person. He seems to be like he is trying to drown his friend at some point and also pulls out a gun.

The set was one of the elements of this production that I thought was absolutely incredible. It was constantly changing as the play progressed and it played a huge part in setting the tone for certain parts. The set comprised of three walls creating a small box in the centre of the stage. The walls reflected a red light and gave a sense of danger and isolation. Whenever victor was in the room, it helped the audience understand the size of victor and helped the audience understand the mental state of Victor. As the play went on, the walls parted and revealed the entire stage. The expanding size of the stage increased as the number of characters introduced to the story also increased. It created the feeling of as more and more people become incorporated in the story, the problems between them seem to expand and also become more and more complicated. The set also featured a pond type water feature at the front of the stage. The little pool reminded me of the sand pit that was featured in the Odyssey and when the daughter was found inside of the pool, it reminded me of Ophelia's death in Hamlet (connecting images and ideas!!woooo!!!). The set also evolved throughout the performance in the sence that it started by creating a sense of a "proper" family and household but as the story went on, there were certain features that were added to the set that gave the family a sense of gothicness and decomposition (the vine/root features from the ceiling and the chandeliers, open doors and mirror, ect.)

One of my favourite scenes was during the party where all the actors had a mask. Each mask had it's own personality but still had the element of neutral mask in it that gave a sense of similarity and blankness between all the masks/characters. The actors were constantly taking the masks off and putting them back on their foreheads, the back of their heads ect. The audience were able to see the masks at different angles and this also allowed to actors to do physical movements that would seem out of place if not for the audience's focus on the mask.

tbc.