LA MENAGERIE “For other messages we have the Deutsche Post”
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The workshop En Scène and the stage director Damien Poinsard presented the play La God Maschine in ACUD.
by Sandro Marques
What could be expected from such a mixture of Woody Allen, Tennessee Williams, Guido Reyna and some Greek Tragedies? Amusement, illusion and clashes between characters, profound questions about the meaning of live?
In this fusion there was a little of everything and the outcome from several months of work had its fruits. The play started but the subtitles didn´t want to cooperate. So, the first act was without German subtitles. If planned or not, there were no complains by the audience that filled the room. The challenge of not offering everything and letting room for the poetic perception of your audience is courageous.
By the second act, the public was engaged with the play and laughs started to be heard. Contrasting with the calm starting of the initial act, the rest of the play got in a fast rhythm and amusing one. Only by the middle of the second act, a baby woke up and started to cry. The text is mainly based on Woody Allen’s play God (A Play), with small sketches inspired on A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams. Two Greek Goddesses, a dramaturgical author searching for immortality and innumerous other characters just add to the confusion following the method of decomposition and reconstruction of the dramatic act used by Damien Poinsard. On a quest for the truth, all this different references engage with hilarious moments trying to find a solution that ultimately satisfies the author. Everyone is entitled to its own truth but ultimately it is God’s will that predominates in La God Maschine.
Questions like the immortality of the author, what is real, what is the truth, were being thrown throughout the play but the main reason for everybody to be there was not to think about it. For some theatre it isn’t. The main purpose is entertainment, the experience of a collective moment of joy and, if because of what we are listening, watching, feeling with that experience, we can still think for a moment, the great message was delivered. What better than learning with joy? As it was said in the play, for other messages we have the Deutsche Post.