[2012091] Dining Uns-table
Cloé Fournier @ Bakehouse Theatre – Studio
6:00pm, Tue 6 Mar 2012
As I check-in at the Studio’s box office, I ask for the pre-sale numbers: “you’re it,” I’m told, “but there’s a reviewer in, too.”
Saddened, I sit in the “other” room, accidentally eavesdropping on stage instructions being delivered to “volunteers”. I check back in at the box office; apparently the volunteers are acquired from the Fringe’s pool of volunteer staff. I spy on them receiving more instructions; they’re a motley bunch of all shapes and sizes, and I can’t help but imagine there’s a hint of sadness in some of the younger volunteers: they probably nominated themselves with dreams of meeting Wil Anderson, but instead find themselves in a strange performance art piece.
I say “performance art” instead of dance, because – though there is undoubtedly a well-defined choreography to the piece – the term just feels more appropriate.
By the time myself and the reviewer – no walk-up patrons, sadly – enter the Studio, seven volunteers are sitting around a table onstage, their chests emblazoned with their familial roles. Passive expressions, they’ve obviously been told to look straight ahead with no emotion. Cloé Fournier joins them onstage, and stiffly circumnavigates the table and its guests; there’s an oddness to her movements, with little physical ticks that somehow create the sense of a fastidiously obsessed individual. The ticks grow larger, and she starts whispering – to herself? – “shut up”. Quietly at first, before an edge, and then a snarl, creeps in – shut up, tick. Shut up, tick.
Suddenly she’s smacking herself around, her body kicking with the impact – there’s an ominous sense of violence in the air. Despite the fact that it’s just Fournier contorting her body, there’s a tangible physicality to the beating… and then it stops. She picks her crumpled self up from the stage floor and starts rearranging the furniture, fussing with the positioning of the volunteers who sometimes misunderstand their French-accented instructions. After several minutes, the volunteers line the edges of the stage, and two chairs are front-and-centre.
Again, Fournier starts admonishing herself – initially in stuttery English, but then resorting to French. She balances on top of the two chairs, and… well, there’s a deeply disturbing scene that really, really feels like she was re-enacting a rape. It’s brutal and it’s terrifying and it’s awful, with her straining form supported only by the chair backs, and her anguished cries and yelps and tears ripping through the Studio, leaving the volunteers’ eyes agog and the reviewer frantically scratching away in his notepad behind me. I couldn’t breath; I didn’t want to see her suffer; I couldn’t look away.
But, after showing us that, Fournier hides underneath the table. And has a cup of tea. And ends the show.
And I’m left… well, confused. The précis for Dining Uns-table suggests an exploration of “failed familial relationships and the psychological effects they have on individuals long after” – but, if that’s the case, Fournier is talking about one seriously fucked-up family. The raw brutality of violence shown to the audience is far beyond what I’d consider a “failed relationship” to be… and though the benign ending would suggest that she (or her character) is at peace with these “failures”, I still can’t help thinking that I must be missing something really obvious.
In terms of performance, Fournier is uncompromising and absolutely compelling; in terms of narrative, however, Dining Uns-table somehow feels incoherent, despite its moments of brutal connection.