Swamp Club
Director (and kinda Writer): Philippe Quesne
Cast: Isabelle Angotti, Snæbjörn Brynjarsson, Yvan Clédat, Cyril Gomez-Mathieu, Ola Maciejewska, Émilien Tessier, Gaëtan Vourcʼh
Part of: Wiener Festwochen

Plot:
An art center in the middle of a swamp is slowly preparing for the arrival of their guests from various destinations. The text of a fairy tale is set up in an endless loop, a string quartett takes position, the center’s program is continuously announced. And then nothing much happens.

As you can probably guess by the fact that I did not finish watching the play, I did not like it. It was boring and pretty much incomprehensible.

When the play started I actually thought that there was too much going on. There was loud music, three actors on stage who you couldn’t properly see (or know what exactly it was they were doing), a fairy tale to read and a program to read and grasp at least slightly. But the initial overwhelming factor soon dissipated. The fairy tale turns out to be so boring that I didn’t even bother finishing to read it – despite the fact that it ran in a constant loop. When you get to see what the people are doing, it turns out that you don’t really care. And the music, while beautiful, stays obnoxious and overly present.

I watched the thing for about an hour, then I left. In that hour I admittedly fell asleep for a bit (maybe five minutes or so) but I can’t imagine that I missed much. I also wasn’t the first or only one to leave. Still, a few people did laugh and obviously saw more entertainment than I did. But I think that when an audience starts laughing at the word “grotto” (just the word in a sentence, no particular set-up, no special delivery, no punch-line – that came after), it’s more out of desperation than anything else.

The only thing that did work for me was the stage design. That was beautiful and cool and slightly other-worldly. I just wish that the play had had a plot. Or at least proper dialogue.

Summarising: Nah.