The Stage

Micro

Published Wednesday 14 April 2010 at 13:15 by William McEvoy

Billed as a physical concert, Pierre Rigal’s show plays around with objects, sounds, musical instruments and bodies in a sometimes eardrum-shattering way.

A scene from Micro at the Gate Theatre Photo: Pierre Grosbois

The tiny stage is set for a rock concert, but out of the gloom emerge strange drum-headed monsters, electric guitars with legs and cymbal-faced creatures from a land where musical instruments and human bodies merge.

Rigal wants to physicalise and visualise the impact and energy of rock music. The four performers sometimes become their instruments or seem possessed by them. Electricity pulses through them, short-circuiting - their arms and legs buzz and give feedback, while heads and torsos form an elaborate drum-kit of syncopated noises.

Surprising and uncanny, comedy slapstick routines shift into more conventional music using drums, guitars and vocals to startling effect. It moves from the ethereal to the earth-shaking, creating multi-layered sounds that do odd, surprising things with male and female voices. Frederic Stoll’s superb lighting, sometimes parodying rock gig cliches, adds to the effect.

Performers Melanie Chartreux, Malik Djoudi, Gwenael Drapeau and Julien Lepreux are all gifted musicians and vocalists with a strong sense of comic timing. Chartreux especially brings an intensity and focus to her performance, moving like an automaton or melting down through an amp overload.

The latter half of the show lacks the variety of the opening and is overlong, especially the encore. Yet its high voltage performances and sometimes crazily beautiful music leave a striking impression.