Lovable puppets in a godless world

Clay figures act out heartrending tales with chilling precision. This time Hotel Modern’s ‘bouquet’ of stories is more personal, and the emotions more recognisable.

Deeply moving surrealism
In God’s Beard, the new maquette play by the Rotterdam-based theatre group Hotel Modern, we hear the sound of old man weeping, played back from an old tape recording. His voice cracking with emotion he talks about the last days of his own father who was betrayed, arrested by the German occupiers, and then sent to the concentration camp where he perished.
Meanwhile, the three actors onstage use live animation techniques (involving maquettes, clay figures and miniature cameras) to bring these scenes to life. The emotional narrative voice combines with the chilling precision of the accompanying scenes to create a heartrending story. This is just one of the bouquet of stories making up God’s Beard. ‘Bouquet’ is the word actor Pauline Kalker herself uses to describe her play – with some irony, because the recurring themes of this bouquet are death, grief, and transience.

Those already familiar with the work of Hotel Modern will not be surprised at the choice of this kind of subject matter. The company has for the last fifteen years been making consoling ‘live animation dramas’ about dark topics such as war and genocide (in their classics The Great War and Kamp, respectively) and even the end of humanity, as in last year’s ‘apocalyptic revue’ Seaplane Mothership.

Actors Arlène Hoornweg, Pauline Kalker and Herman Helle explore their fantasies about death and destruction by filming cute little puppets in miniature film sets made of glued together pieces of cardboard and other junk. This contrast characterises the group’s sometimes deeply moving surrealism.

In God’s Beard death is closer to home than ever before. The stories are more personal this time, and the emotions more readily recognisable than in earlier work; Kalker explains that the voice of the man crying on tape belonged to her now deceased father.

Another story from the bouquet concerns a little girl with the same first name as Arlène Hoornweg. One day little Arlène is playing in the living room while a family tragedy unfolds in the adjacent room. From the child’s perspective, we follow the sad events which ultimately span an entire lifetime. In this scene musician Arthur Sauer plays Chopin. At some moments it verges on the sentimental, but at others what we witness is deeply affecting.

A number of absurd interludes inject more variety. The most amusing ones are performed by Herman Helle. He explains that God was originally going to take part in the play, but that all of his scenes were deleted in the final edit. What he can display to us is the filthy, tattered beard that God left behind. Helle’s arch tone makes this scene particularly amusing. And it’s highly effective, too, because after these interludes Hotel Modern’s godless world – in which mini people are struggling to survive – packs an even harder punch.

20-12-2012