Sydney Reviews

Photo – Mette van der Sijs

Cadavre Exquis, translated into English as exquisite corpse takes its name from a technique invented by the surrealists in which a series of images or words are assembled by different collaborators who either follow a rule or witness the end of what the previous collaborator has done.

In this case, four different directors from theatre companies around the world were asked to make a work of no longer than fifteen minutes having only seen the final minute of the previous works. The director was allowed to work on the piece for two weeks. Each director brought one actor. The four actors worked on all pieces, taking vows of secrecy not to reveal what had happened in the previous scene to the directors

Several of the directors and/or companies have appeared at the Sydney Festival before. Lisbeth Gritter is from Dutch company Kassys who presented Good Cop Bad Cop about animals stuck in a Big Brother style house, a most surreal offering in itself, in 2011. Tim Crouch from the UK directs a piece together with Nicole Beutler. Tim is also appearing in the one man show I, Malvolio at the festival this year. Also represented are New York Art and performance group, Nature Theatre of Oklahoma who performed No Dice in 2009.

The possibilities are endless and exciting for the participants, but is there enough here to engage and entertain an audience? The people who will get the most out of Cadavre Exquis are most likely theatre makers themselves. They will be interested in the question of how effectively the participants worked within these guidelines to create theatre.

If you are a general punter with no interest in theatre making, you are likely to find the title “exquisite corpse”, a despairingly accurate description. The reason being that it feels like the directors were trapped by form. For example, quite often they would create an entirely different scenario in the last minute for the next director to feed off. They seemed loathed to create any sustained narrative, as if fearful of contradicting the previous piece too much. The second and third pieces are particularly disjointed, relying on random scenarios or lines. These pieces stay true to the surrealist origins of Cadavre Exquis but make for frustrating viewing. Lisbeth Gritters returns to direct the fifth and final piece after directing the first. This is the strongest piece by far as it uses the props on stage to tell the comical tale of shipwrecked sailors.

Cadavre Exquis is an intriguing theatrical exercise which is unfortunately flawed in execution and therefore is of limited value to the general public.


Sydney Festival 2014
Cadavre Exquis

Venue: Bay 17 | Carriageworks, Eveleigh
Dates: 17 – 19 January, 2014
Tickets: $35
Bookings: 1300 723 038