State of the Arts: January 31, 2011 Archive

The reviews are in for "L'effet de Serge"

Posted at 2:07 PM on January 31, 2011 by Marianne Combs (0 Comments)
Filed under: Criticism, Theater

"Serge" presents micro-shows in front of a macro-audience at the Walker Art Center

The Walker Art Center concluded its month long "Out There" series with "L'effet de Serge" by Philippe Quesne and Vivarium Studio. According to the Walker website, "L'Effet de Serge is a surprisingly humorous and touching tribute to the pleasures and the necessity of art."

Well, not everyone agreed. While critic Jay Gabler found the show enchanting, Rohan Preston found the show lacking and Ed Huyck deemed it pretentious. Read on for excerpts of their reviews, or click on the links to read them in their entirety.

From Jay Gabler at TC Daily Planet:

A little glimpse into the life of Serge is all L'Effet promises, and it delivers beautifully on that promise.

L'Effet is the final work to be presented in the Walker's Out There series, which this year spotlights European artists. (Quesne is French.) Among the four, L'Effet employs the least theatrical trickery--except for a little fog, there are really no special effects to speak of. We simply watch Serge go about his business, and after the climactic performance, we watch for a long time as Serge's friends finish their wine, chat quietly, eat a little pizza (Serge apparently favors Pizza Lucé), and leave.

From Rohan Preston at Star Tribune:

Wittingly or not, artists sometimes deliver work that supports the argument that the arts are marginal. I had that thought as I laughed along to the minimalist, sly stage doodlings of performer Gaëtan Vourc'h at Walker Art Center Thursday night.

Serge's shows, an implicit critique of shortened attention spans and the inflated language and indirection that people resort to when talking about performance, remind me of opening-night awkwardness at less-than-successful productions. How did you like the show? Well, that was really something else (and nothing else).

From Ed Huyck at City Pages:

In the performance notes for L'effet de Serge, the finale of the Walker Art Center's Out There 2011, the production by Vivarium Studio is described as turning "theatrical conventions upside down as it blends reality and artifice, superimposing varying levels of presence and questioning the nature of representation while taking a dispassionate look at human beings, their needs for each other and their reliance on a poetic spirit to transcend mundane lives of sometimes stupefying insignificance."

This is probably all about the emotional disconnection of modern life and the artifice of performing onstage. There's nothing at all wrong with exploring those subjects, but it seems pretty cynical to pad out your show with 10 minutes of people sharing small talk and eating Pizza Luce.

So, did you make it to "L'effet de Serge?" If so, what did you think? Share your review in the comments section.

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