You have through Sunday to see an exceptional performance. Last December marked the passing of the famous French choreographer, performer and filmmaker Alain Buffard. His last piece, Baron Samedi, will not show again after these last few performances. Baron Samedi, name taken from the voodoo legend, and characterizing that which is grotesque and carnivalesque, is not only a figure but also “the point of departure“ to this piece. In the production, we witness six characters treading through a fantastical day-mare; playing, singing, scheming, dying, or, are they already dead? Only one way to find out! You must see it with your own eyes!
Music adapted from German composer Kurt Weill, you will love and hate this piece. Love: not just for the amazing vocals, or the method in which Weill’s songs were woven into the piece, but the stories itself are captivating; abstractions condensing to form linear movements before dissolving again into narrative chaos, fears approached and fled from like a dream with a searing edge that is both grotesque and hungry. And they never waste too much time being up before it all comes crashing down. Loud and determined, these existential orphans continue trudging through limbo, tossing between carnal desires and the varying nuances of madness, sadness, irony, power, and catastrophe. Who doesn’t love having their mind fucked by such beautiful creatures?
As Francois Frimat says in the program notes, “With all these movements of the self, outside the self and between the selves, I’m a stranger here myself…”
Don’t let yourself or those you love down! Take everyone you know and share in the beauty and disaster. Tickets available for Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Show at 8pm. Visit the On the Boards website to buy tickets.
Photo by Marc Domage
Photo by Marc Domage
