Review: Sawdust Symphony – A Surreal Circus of Stagecraft and Woodcraft

Power drill? Check. Hammers? Present and correct. Chainsaw? Fully charged. However, providing a full inventory for this unique hour of circus-theatre-carpentry in the fringe’s Made in Germany showcase might reveal too much. Michael Zandl, David Eisele, and Kolja Huneck have unexpected surprises in their toolbox and an array of professional-grade equipment. This truly is a workshop production.

The performance kicks off with an operatic score, featuring a race to see who among the trio can fastest assemble a chair from wood offcuts using different methods. As they present their creations, Huneck avoids sitting on his stool, which is comically held together with dollops of smeared glue. In a surprising twist, he vanishes between the floorboards of the makeshift stage. When he reemerges from a trapdoor, his body is covered in paste. You can’t help but wonder if shower facilities are available backstage.

Giant nails begin shooting upward around the performers like green shoots, a forest emerges from upturned hammers, and sawdust falls like snow around them. The show teems with wooden wonders, including a freshly whittled spinning top that twirls around the stage, eventually supporting an even larger toy when turned upside down.

Amid acrobatics and juggling, each craftsman asserts his distinctive personality: Zandl, exasperatedly engaging in a game of whack-a-mole with the nails; Eisele, the goggle-wearing poet enraptured by his materials; and Huneck, the clown who loves gloop and is the only one to communicate in voiceover. His surreal narrative humorously describes how glue might feel when squished between two planks, “warm and comfortable … feels like home.”

Imagine Looney Tunes meeting Pina Bausch, with each of the trio’s individual and collective obsessions unfolding in a blend of humor and despair. The sensory enjoyment of newly planed wood shavings is palpable. Under the warm glow designed by Sanne Rosbag, the trio delivers a lightly unsettling, surprisingly suspenseful, and exquisitely crafted hour.

• At Zoo Southside, Edinburgh, until 25 August

Source: The Guardian