Amazing dreams from the maestro

As Dedale, the latest offering from Compagnie Philippe Genty, comes to town, PATRICK SMITH meets an inhabitant of Genty's "landscape of dreams."


It's a shock to learn that a memory you thought was a couple of years old is about to turn eight. But there it is in black and white: Driftings, the magical images of the Compagnie Philippe Genty show that remain as vivid as the night they etched themselves into this unsuspecting brain, was part of the 1992 Wellington festival programme.

That's the thing about a Genty show: the surreal visions are so striking - not to say mind-bending - you're probably stuck with them for life.

Not only that, but each show is full of them, making it hard to recall, a couple of years down the track, whether you've seen one Genty production or several. (Did all that stuff really happen in one evening?)

Such confusion is familiar to Genty and his Paris-based company. Nathalie Dec-rette, who appears in Dedale, says, yes, "people seem to remember very well - not the details but the sensation of the show. Yes, we hear that a lot."

Genty's brand of theatre has traditionally used actors, puppets, lighting and technical wizardry to breathtaking effect, creating onstage illusions. As he says, these are "not there for the sake of illusion but to crumble the rational, eventually finding their way into the spectator's subconscious." Which is where they seem to lodge, breeding an appetite for more such hallucinatory experiences.

It's a mistake, however, to carry too many expectations into a Genty show. Each one is different and, says Decrette, Dedale is a major departure for the French theatre maestro and his wife, choreo-grapher Mary Underwood, with whom he conceived the show.

"Philippe is no more using such magical effects - no more black theatre, no more appearing, disappearing ... This is very different for Philippe.

"And for once there is a set onstage and this is also new! This show is going more towards theatre and dance, there's more choreography and also more characters, more acting - people are no longer [ciphers]. Yes, there is magic, but without all the technology."

For once, she adds, the show did not grow out of a dream, despite the "dream landscape" it has been described as inhabiting.

"All the others were related to the dreams of Philippe and Mary Underwood. They worked many, many years on their dreams - writing them down each day and making shows with their dreams."

Dedale carries a subtitle, the Maze, and is described as "a fantastic journey through the labyrinth of the spirit" - something Genty believes we can relate to because "we are all exiles of our childhood." That has certainly been true of Genty, who, according to Decrette, was "nearly autistic" as a child and for many years suffered an unreasonable guilt over his father's death - an event she doesn't expand upon.

The story of Dedale comes from the Greek myth of Daedalus, an architect and inventor who designed a labyrinth from which no one could escape. King Minos imprisoned the man-eating Minotaur in the labyrinth. Daedalus revealed the secret of the maze only to Minos' daughter, Ariadne, who helped her lover Theseus to slay the monster and escape. In revenge, Minos imprisoned Daedalus and his son Icarus in the labyrinth, but Daedalus made wax wings and the pair flew away - although, as we know, Icarus flew a little too high Don't expect a classical tragedy, however. The show hangs on the narrative in the loosest possible way. The surreal scenes are more Magritte than Homer and the characters range from a boy in search of his mum to a semi-naked, punk-haired mannequin called Olga, a rather overripe embodiment of temptation. In the broadest sense, says Decrette, Dedale is about rising above our difficulties.

It's a mistake, though, to get too hung up on meanings: better to sit back and let the onstage magic do its stuff. Audiences speak of being transformed, and performers find themselves changed by the process of working on Genty's shows, each of which grows out of their collective input.

With the luxury of French Government support, Genty - who has remained in Paris this time - works in an unhurried way. Dedale was a quickie and it took nine months to get to the stage. Decrette recalls spending 14 months' workshopping and rehearsing Forget Me Not, which came to Auckland in 1994. A year seems to be about average.

"He needs time," she laughs, "he needs time. Also, it's very important for him to take time because he really wants to know us, to know who we are and to be able to play with our personalities, to find out what we can do best in the show."

Decrette describes herself as an actress, but confesses to feeling "a little bit more like a dancer" in Dedale, where dance, drama, puppetry and mime merge into a finely choreographed whole.

"I'm not a professional dancer but I know about moving my body, expressing myself by movement. Everybody in the company has to go to the same rhythm - dance, theatre, [puppet] manipulation, it's part of the show, and that's all."


* Dedale (the Maze), Compagnie Philippe Genty, ASB Theatre, Wednesday to Saturday.