Robyn Orlin, We Must Eat our Suckers with our Wrappers on

Corum/Opéra Berlioz, 2007-06-26

Author: Jochen Krölls

Vibrant, sexually explicit dance theatre with African spirit, fresh, aggressive and at the same time friendly energy.

We get red suckers at the entrance to Montpellier’s largest theatre. We grab them out of red plastic bins. Four female and nine male African dancers/singers tell and sing the story of AIDS and its victims. They all carry the same type of red plastic bins which they use as drums and seats. And they all wear colourful skirts - unisex? Permanently followed by a man with a small camera the images of which we see on the screen at the rear stage wall. Excellent voices sing African acapella. They move from stage into the audience.

One lady, represented by a male dancer, tells us the story of her husband who has just died. The doctors forecast that she herself has only 3 weeks left to live. She tells us that from now on she will fully enjoy life, go out and watch beautiful sexy dancers at nightclubs. Simultaneously she gives suckers to several spectators in the first row, takes them back, sucks them herself very lusciously, puts them under her armpits and glues them to various other areas of her body.

Many songs to follow. Intelligent, simple and surprising camera and light effects - a single light bulb from the ceiling as the single light source, a red plastic bin moved up so the bulb disappears inside the bin like in a lantern and suddenly all there is is red light all over the stage..

In the last sequence they all wear costumes whith hidden heads. Inflated condoms fixed at the top of their heads with faces painted on them.

Frenetic applause. Deserved.

ECHO

Robyn Orlin, We Must Eat our Suckers with our Wrappers on

Corum/Opéra Berlioz, 2007-06-26