Visually stunning take on a weighty subject
The old lady has got a slightly surprised expression on her face – then a little scared, then somehow curiously neutral. She lives alone. Her dress is not as clean as it once was, and neither is her home. She’s somewhat confused. Memories and thoughts tumble over each other and play games with her. She has almost no perception of time.
Snail Trails is the title of Hotel Modern’s new play that depicts a day and a wakeful night in the life of this little human. The Rotterdam theatre collective displays the same great precision and attention to detail as in their earlier, award-winning play The Great War. Here, all attention is focused on the alienation and fear that strikes when the brain ceases working as it once did. At first sight, the old lady’s house looks perfectly normal, but household objects are soon giving her the runaround. The table loses a leg, something bulges under the carpet, the teapot and the fruit bowl lead a life of their own – these are just a few of the surprises that the ingeniously designed set has in store for them.
Actrice Arlène Hoornweg plays the woman. She doesn’t talk – who would she talk to anyway? Her body language is enough, expressing by turns the wonderment, fear and a kind of contentment in response to the befuddlement that keeps overwhelming her, but which she is trying to cope with in her own way. The woman has no name; she is one of so many – a fact emphasized in the second part of the play, which Hotel Modern has shaped as an animated film. We see the woman on her night-time meanderings through the big city where she lives. She makes no contact, she is completely isolated, and the street scenes (in which shrimps play an important role) are even more surreal than the strange domestic scenes.
Yet Snail Trails is not a sad play. The witty and all-defining mise-en-scène breathes air into the weighty subject matter. In this way Hotel Modern manages to deliver a delightful piece that elicits a melancholic sigh and a relieved smile.
31-12-2001
