How
do you describe the indescribable? Almost anything I could report about this
extraordinary piece of installation / event theatre from the shunt collective
would spoil the experience for you. But there are a few things I can safely
pass on. The first is that you really should catch it. It’s stumbling
across something as unexpected and refreshing as this that makes living in
London worthwhile.
I can also report that the guy scratching his bare arse in the publicity shot
isn’t actually in it. Naked tennis players do play a part in the piece,
just not that rather magnificent specimen. Worth mentioning because tow of
the audience member I spoke to on press night had booked hoping to see more
of him. Momentarily disappointing though this maybe, I defy anyone not to
leave with a smile on their face after spending an hour with these enigmatically
anonymous and surreal performance artists in a succession of abandoned rooms
in an old warehouse behind the Oxo building.
The theme is tennis and the minutiae of its power struggle between the sexes
and petty wafer-thin layers of command that exist between the umpire, linesman
and ball boys/ girls who hold anarchy at bay. But, as you’re ushered
from one extraordinary scenario to another, it’s as if this them has
been kidnapped by David Lynch in one of his more surreal moments and transplanted
to a wing of Gormenghast castle.
The audience are firstly separated into male and female groups and ushered
into the appropriate changing rooms. There’s a terrific sense of menace
in the air as the deep rivalries of the tennis establishment blister to the
surface. It’s also extremely funny to witness the veneer of civilised
fair play being stripped away.
After a series of dreamlike encounters we joined the ladies to watch a tennis
match that was pure Alice in Wonderland on acid. There is nothing lavish or
spectacular here, but the event is presented with so much wit and conviction
that it becomes a thrill taking a trip into the twilight zone with these brilliant
but obviously deeply weird people.
Philip
Chapman
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