Papelixo

The Intimate Theatre: Hiddingh

Monday 22    14:00
Tuesday 23    12:00
Wednesday 24    11:00
Saturday 27    16:00

50 Minutes

BRAZIL
Amalgama Productions
Anne Westphal

This theatrical performance is meant to make people,- children and adults – think about all the thrown away garbage – not only in the city, but also on the most beautiful places of nature like beaches or places of difficult access like all along the seashore or along the countryroads…

What might be the consequence in the future….?

Producing, consuming, throwing away and wasting are actions that have become part of our lives like being automatical and self-understood, without questioning about it.

All the material used in this performance actually is garbage: old newspapers, plastic bottles, plastic bags…. – yet used and transformed in a very creative way, becoming decoration and interacting objects at the same time. Then there will be also introduced and manipulated “puppets” made of plastic bottles (insects and flowers), thus showing the audience some creative possibilities.

In the performance, the actress appears first as a young girl playing with newspapers, creating a dress, a flower and other toys to play with.

Then she appears as an adult man trying to read the newspapers yet being disturbed by environmental noise. After that the actress gradually changes into a “vulture-person”, throwing garbage and changing the whole scene into a chaos thus creating a fertile ground for insects, diseases and plagues..

Then, getting more and more conscious about the situation, the “vulture” will turn into a “garbage-devouring-giant”, by also selecting and dividing the garbage: one for the paper, one for the bottles and one for the plastic bags. At the end everything will be clean and the organized garbage will be covered with a white “carpet”. Then some flowers will start growing as the beginning of a new world…

This performance needs no spoken words, as the images and sound speak for themselves. The sonorous universe is created by the brazilian composer Joao Mendes with original computermusic including some inserts of brazilian heavy metal rock band Sepultura.

1. 

   Yvette Hardie says:

   March 23, 2010 at 7:33 am

   REVIEW

   Title: Papelixo
   Length: 50 minutes
   Company: Amalgama Production
   Target audience: 7 to 12 years old
   Venue: Intimate Theatre at Hiddingh Campus, UCT
   Performance Times: Tuesday 23 12:00; Wednesday 24 11:00; Saturday 27 16:00

   Reviewed by Yazeed Kamaldien
   Papelixo is a concocted Portuguese word that translates in English to ‘paper garbage’ and it refers to the pollution-versus-recycling theme in this risky theatre piece.
   Its creator Anne Westphal informs that even though her production is parcelled with other children’s theatre at the Out The Box festival, it’s not for kids only. Exactly.
   Papelixo is a test of endurance in parts because of its experimental and abstract nature. It also has some dark overtones. And it’s accessible to anyone older than 10 years old.
   Younger children might not pick up on the themes as they may not yet have been exposed to the issues at play. Their references might also be too limited to recognise the busy scenes or the tension aroused by the creative use of music, props and lighting.
   There is also no audience interaction which is so vital in children’s theatre to keep the young ones drawn in. They might simply get bored or lost along the way.
   Papelixo has a basic premise: The crazy urbanite is destroying the landscape with its constant pollution but a cleaner, friendlier world is possible. This is portrayed with a host of characters in different settings; city folk caught in the hustle and a vulture fighting off other creatures in a garbage dump.
   Papelixo is not about storytelling but rather celebrates the grand spectacle of theatre. An intriguing example is how newspaper stories come to life via sounds effects. On stage, we see a man reading a newspaper while we’re bombarded with sounds of talking heads, guns of war and bustling city noises.
   At times it feels like a mess on stage – and that’s exactly what this performance wants to warn us about. Then the heavy and somewhat dark music seems to go on for too long but that effect is perhaps a result of the Intimate Theatre which places an audience within breathing space of the performers. Or perhaps it’s intended to shout at us for being the polluting urbanite.
   This art-theatre is worth sitting through though. The mesmerising finale is a plastic packet landscape. It’s theatre that has evolved from definitely thinking out the box.
2. 

   Yvette Hardie says:

   March 23, 2010 at 7:33 am

   INTERVIEW

   Written by Yazeed Kamaldien
   A mere 15 kilos – that’s the weight of the entire set and props of Brazilian-based theatre-maker Anne Westphal’s arresting production Papelixo.
   Westphal is German but has lived in Brazil most of her life. Her fascinating career is based on traversing the theatre festival circuit. She exemplifies the sort of trajectory that solo artists worldwide step into: create, source funding, will travel.
   Just last month Westphal performed in India. Her current run of Papelixo at Out The Box was funded by Brazil’s ministry of culture. She sounds like a bohemian when she talks about ‘Teatro Mambembe’ which she ascribes to.
   “This is a Brazilian-Portuguese word and concept which refers to theatre for poor people. It’s experimental theatre like the old times when actors packed their bags and travelled with their shows. It’s like the circus,” says Westphal.
   “My work is like this and it’s why companies in Eastern Europe have been interested in seeing how I make theatre without using much cash. I also have interest in this from Arab countries and parts of South America.”
   The result is theatre that uses throw-away objects like plastic bottles, newspapers and plastic bags to create imaginative scenes. Finding ways of working with these objects started Westphal on Papelixo. The production’s title is a mixture of two Portuguese words, ‘papel’ which means ‘paper’ and ‘lixo’ which means ‘plastic’.
   Papelixo is an entirely physical experience for the performer – there is no dialogue – and it speaks of Westphal’s career which “combines dance with objects and light effects”.
   “I do visual theatre and don’t use words. I don’t tell it. I show it. And it’s hard work,” says Westphal.
   “With this piece, I wanted to raise questions about garbage. Why do we throw things away? Why do we throw it in places that are difficult to clean? If you’re sitting in a bus why throw garbage out the window? Just leave it in the bus because that’s easier to clean,” she elaborates.
   “Our future landscape will be a junkyard if we continue like this. The end can be seen as peaceful with flowers but it can also be a plastic landscape with plastic flowers. It will be clean but it will all be plastic.”