9-13, 15-20 Aug at 7:00pm
Summerhhall (venue 26) Black Tent on courtyard / 1 Summerhall (EH9 1PL)
Tickets: £11/£9 Box office: 0845 874 3001
Performance without words
Duration: 1 hour
Age restrictions: Parental Guidance
A scence from Caesarean Section. Essays on Suicide
The title of this performance is a metaphor for suicidal compulsion and the involuntary force that pulls us back from the brink. Caesarean Section’s musical structure was developed by layering polyphonic Corsican songs with Bulgarian, Romanian, Icelandic and Chechen songs
Its subtle power and energy pays tribute to composer Erik Satie and his method of using the intensity of each and every drop of sound. Through its contact with contemporary theatre and its integration into the play’s structure, the transformed traditional music takes on a new form, as it is seamlessly interwoven with the performers’ movements. Theatre ZAR also acknowledges the great literary influence of Aglaya Veteranyi on this work, which forms part of Gospels of Childhood. Triptych. The resultant performance is "cruel, beautiful, sometimes slyly funny and altogether inimitable." (Jim O'Quinn, A Search for the Ildest Songs in the World, American Theatre). During the research process, members of Theatre ZAR made several trips to Corsica, in search of new material for the emerging musical score. As such, the climax of the performance is characterised by the liturgical music of Corsican confraternities. Alhtough rooted in Corsican music, the musical score is enhanced with Bulgarian cries, calls and chants.
(…) it’s the most earthbound and theatrical panel of the triptych. Berkeley and no-less-astonishing Matej Matejka and Emma Bonnici dance, court, fight, teeter, wail and nearly fly atop and around a thin stream of broken glass. Piano, harmonium and cellos complement the rih vocals as Corsican, Bulgarian and Icelandic melodies tango with Astor Piazzolla. As glass flakes fall to the crystalline notes of Eric Satie, Theatre ZAR transcends the moment.
Robert Hurwitt, San Francisco Chronicle
Chris Jones commented in his article for the Chicago Tribune:
It is a gut-wrenching, primal, non-literal piece with a capacity to disturb that seems to seep right into your bones.
Maria Shevtsova thus described the impact of ZAR's art of theatre on the viewers:
Teatr ZAR takes audiences on a journey of polyphonic sound where compact simplicity penetrates through and through, uniting mind, body and soul as one. So complete is this call upon the wholeness of human being that, at the end of a ZAR performance, listeners- spectators sit in silence, touched by grace.
A review from Jake Orr written for A Younger Theatre, an online journal of the young generation gave unwavering praise and five out of five stars to the performances shown in Edinburgh:
For me, seeing Ceasarean Section. Essays on Suicide (...) once again pinpoints the beauty and excited moment when I find theatre that I’ve been looking for all year. (...) Whilst the images and movement evoke the physical portrayal of destruction and saviour that suicide teeters between, the choral singing does so much more. It evades the body, provoking an emotive quality that reduces you to tears. Resonating, and calling upon the primitive and earth-like qualities that humans posses, I was rendered speechless. This is not just masterful theatre, this is living, breathing theatre of epic proportions.
The play has been presented with the prestigious 2012 Herald Angel Award and it has also been shortlisted for the 2012 Total Theatre Award in the Physical/Visual Theatre category, together with three other productions of the Polska Arts programme: Songs of Lear by Song of the Goat Theatre, The Blind by KTO Theatre, and Teatr Biuro Podróży's Planet Lem.
thumbnail credits: Ditte Berkeley, Kamila Klamut and Matej Matejka in Caesarean Section. Essays on Suicide by Teatr ZAR. Photo: Łukasz Giza