Food Court - Odéon

FOOD COURT Genre: Contemporary theatre Running time: 1h, no interval In English, with French surtitles For thirty years, the Australian company Back to Back Theatre has championed a visual theatre…

FOOD COURT

Genre: Contemporary theatre

Running time: 1h, no interval

In English, with French surtitles

For thirty years, the Australian company Back to Back Theatre has championed a visual theatre that probes the power struggles of the social world. Inspired by a real-life incident, Food Court tells a story of humiliation: two women join forces against a third until her annihilation. From this cruelty emerges a show of a beauty as striking as it is unsettling, one that lays violence bare in its simplest terms.

The Australian company Back to Back Theatre, directed by Bruce Gladwin, has for more than thirty years developed an ambitious visual theatre, whose glimmers and echoes reflect the cruelty of the world. Made up mostly of performers with disabilities, the company examines the fault lines of the social world, the gaps into which violence rushes and crushes the most vulnerable. Inspired by a real incident that took place in a shopping centre, Food Court tells a mundane story of harassment, whose narrative pretext can be summed up thus: two women join forces against a third with the aim of humiliating her, a methodical onslaught carried on until her psychological and physical annihilation. From this abrupt cruelty, Back to Back Theatre crafts a show of a beauty as striking as it is unsettling, which, far from warding off violence, heightens its effects. Over the hypnotic textures of the post-jazz trio The Necks, who improvise live every evening, the fragile brilliance of the images, carried by skilful lighting and projections, rivals the crudeness of the insults and bullying.