antiwords

 

 

 

 

 

Drinking a crate of beer would loosen the tongue on most people but not the two women performers in Spitfire Theatre’s production, part of the Fringe’s Czech showcase. Nor would it affect Vaněk, the stand-in character for playwright Václav Havel in his 1975 drama Audience. Prior to being the first President of the Czech Republic, Havel was banned from the theatre by the Czechoslovak Communist regime and retired to work in a brewery. In his play, the brewmaster tries to get Vaněk drunk but ends up binge-drinking himself into a stupor, eventually revealing that he is an informer.

The guise of truth under macho posturing is brought to the fore in this adaptation. Antiwords is a mute physical theatre piece, beginning with the two performers taking on masculinised gestures, from heavy-breathing and slow steps evocative of Buzz Aldrin to positioning beer bottles between their thighs.

Great bronze-painted papier mâché masks, designed by Paulina Skavova, are worn to play the action in Havel’s brewery. We laugh as one figure spectacularly releases a bottle cap into the air before sloppily pouring beer into two glasses, and then throws the bottle followed by a jet of frothy suds. His drinking buddy is timid and polite, trying to empty out his glass under the table. When it comes to downing the pints, the mask is lifted to revea the female performer underneath, who after a quick smile gulps the drink down in one. While practical, it also reminds us of the gender subversion at work: the performed masculinity of the barroom.

Most complexly, as the boozing goes on, we’re discreetly aware of our implication in it, that through our laughing at the drunken excess we’re actually encouraging it. Much like the inebriated confession of the brewmaster, the truth has a habit of slipping out.

Antiwords runs at Summerhall (Old Lab) until 30 Aug. For more information and tickets, see the Fringe website.