It’s just a white line on the floor, the rest is black. Then, a tiny part of the line moves and after a while it slowly erects itself. It bends down again and suddenly comes to life. It wriggles about and dances to some kind of silent beat. This simple white line has turned into something akin to a human being.
It’s astonishing how little it takes for the brain to project human features and emotions onto inanimate objects, and Mummenschanz have been working on this premise for the last 42 years. It’s their first stint into London since 2006 and in only 80 minutes the company presents over twenty playful sketches from the vast body of their work. In the little moments, glittery curtains, loo roll faces and even massive construction site tubes come to life and play out universal emotions which are at the core of human existence. Life from broken down into their most basic geometrical forms (a robot turned crab turned wasp out of just a few yellow rectangles) re-enact scenes of love, jealousy or, in the case of glittery fish in a magical underwater world, the survival of the fittest. The players, consisting of Floriana Frassetto, Philipp Egli, Raffaella Mattioli and Pietro Montandon, are skilled performers that make you utterly forget that these shapes and figures are manipulated by humans.
It is a children’s show only in as much it doesn’t rely on complex narratives to tell these stories. In fact, the players never utter a single word, which also explains the huge international success of the company. The magic of the show comes from the striking images alone. They create audible wonderment in the audience for simple shapes, movement and light. As is common in clownery, even though words are absent, the show is very much about language and strategies in non-verbal communication. Here, the shapes, often conjured up for mere seconds, stand in for attitudes and emotions. A striking example is the scene in which a bit of fluttery tape creates the shape of two people in conversation and over the course of a few moment builds up to a vicious argument between them.
We are so used to sensory overload with information flooding in through all our receptive channels over pads, phones and screens that it’s difficult to enjoy something as pure and simple as dancing flickers of light. Frassetto’s company forgoes the multimedia spectacle on purpose but it comes at a price. At its best the show is quick, quirky and entertaining, just a white line doing a jaunty jig and clever lighting hiding the skilful performers. When it (silently) elaborates, Mummenschanz feels a little out-dated and the disjointed structure while still amusing fails to hold the audience attention for the whole duration of the show.