” The only performance is the one that shows itself in expectation and effort… aimed at springing up, the body has not outlets, nowhere to head for …”
G. Deleuze, “Fracis Bacon: logique de la sensation”
Catrame entirely takes place inside a big plexiglas transparent box, 9 metres long and 3 metres wide.
Iron panels, that can be modulated, compose the scenic structure; a geometrically perfect box takes to pieces the inside actors’ movement, like in the Muybridge’s photographic experiments…
The box is a big window, exhibition (of atrocities), a tribute to J.G. Ballard, author whom Catrame is particularly dedicated to…
The Atrocity Exhibition and Crash written by Ballard inspired Catrame: the scene, “the body’s operative field” is completed closed, separated from the outside environment, just like an isolation cell, a sterile vacuum packed room; in the same way the perception of the world can also be vacuum packed from a car cockpit or from a Tv screen.
The rhythm of the performance is scanned by continuos “crash test”, which the main character indefatigably executes, as he jumps in air and falls down to the ground, while microphones amplify roar of crashes and breaths for the audience outside the box. The actors control lights and sound effects from inside: the entire set of technical instrumentation is on the background of this scenic structure, like a big scientific / maniacal laboratory.
In Catrame the raving rhythmic of the voices and images is inspired by the most obsessive and obscene Ballard’s writings, by the Bacon’s exasperated muscular tension paintings, by the Burroughs’ irony.
Catrame stands out in front of the audience as a yellow lit up very big screen.
©Cristina Zamagni
