A pity that God wasn’t in it
God was also supposed to appear in the play, explains Herman Helle, but in the end all the scenes he was in were deleted. But Helle does still have God’s moth-eaten white beard, which he keeps in a valise. It is also got a few fun home videos of Creation. In one of them, ‘God’ peels and then squishes a banana, but because the film is played backwards, it looks like He is using the mashed fruit to conjure the perfect banana form and matching jacket.
It is a hilarious interlude in the new play by Hotel Modern, a group that is celebrated internationally for its ingenious approach, which involves using doll houses and finger-sized cameras to create astonishingly convincing worlds.
God’s Beard also sees the return of impressive puppetry scenes. We listen to an audio interview with actress Pauline Kalker’s father while his war stories are brought to life before us using live puppetry – such as when a cardboard box packed with wax figures creates a chilling depiction of the transport of Jews. Another personal story, this time one from the life of actress Arlène Hoornweg, is illustrated in a delightfully melancholic way using flashbacks, in which we see tall trees being replaced with saplings to suggest a journey back in time.
Other scenes are less successful, such as musician Arthur Sauer’s rather sordid song about his desire for a fat Brazilian lover. The aeroplane metaphor that frames the play is also unconvincing. The individual fragments do not build into a single narrative, and it never develops further than explorations of topics such as time, transience, death and solace. Sometimes they are successful; sometimes they are less so. So it’s a pity that God wasn’t in it.
24-12-2012
