Clout Theatre

Much of the excitement surrounding the second year of Fringe activity at Summerhall is centred on the programme: last year, the very presence of an idiosyncratic venue was enough, but this year, the team seem to have delivered a diverse, dynamic line-up. 

Clout Theatre is a a fine example of how Summerhall is attracting a more esoteric type of performance. This international physical theatre company has members from Russia, France, Turkey and Scotland,  performed in the Louvre Museum and the Istanbul Municipal Theatre. But most importantly, at least in terms of style, all of its  members trained at Ecole Jacques Lecoq in Paris.

How A Man Crumbled promises three "bouffonesque" characters (roughly - nasty clowns) and a story that escapes the story-tellers. The Lecoq connection is important - "There are four companies from our year alone at the Fringe this year: Rhum and Clay, Let Slip, Superbolt and us," observes Co-Artistic DirectorGeorge Ramsay - not only in Clout's physicality, but in the willingness to slip outside of the usual theatrical cliches. With director Mine Çerçi known for interpreting Beckett, and a Russian former figure skater in the cast, Clout are hitting out into absurdist territory.

"The show is inspired by Russian absurdist Daniil Kharms," explains ramsay. "And his stories frequently end with ‘enough’ or ‘that’s enough of that’ or ‘and the neighbours all went out for lunch and got run over’. Abruptness is key to his work. He was a precursor to the Theatre of The Absurd."

If Absurdism was once the Shock of the New - when Beckett slapped a couple of vagrants on stage and had them ramble through an arid emotional landscape, the revolution that eventually became Live Art was heralded - it can be a little safe and predictable. For example, without disparaging Dominic Hill's excellent Beckett double-bill at Glasgow's Citizen's Theatre, it's clear that Hill could include these dramas of decay and death in a programme that is popular. But by investigating the lesser-known absurdists, and investing them with a new physicality, Clout are out-flanking mere surrealism.

"Khams was writing in Soviet Russia in the 1930s, about as absurd a time and place as you get!" laughs Ramsay. "Comparisons have been drawn between him and Beckett and Ionesco: I think Beckett is a great influence for us all and I hope we have captured something of his tragicomic spirit which exists also in Kharms." Yet Clout are adding to the intellectual pleasures of the absurd. "A lot of people go to Lecoq because they crave a living theatre and are dis-engaged with a neck-up psychological acting style."

The bouffon is one of Lecoq's gift to theatre, and the three characters in How A Man Crumbled are the key difference between a simple retelling and something more engrossing. Ramsay says that they don't help the drama along, but rather  "get distracted, tell other stories, fight, spit at each other, discuss Pushkin and Gogol and eat vegetables."  

3  - 26 August (not 18,19). Summerhall 15:30 (1  hour)