Theatre Design & Technology - Fall 1999 - 24

In La BaraquefThe Hut

everyone and everything
took part in the
performance.

methods used to give us these images and moments. Astepladder suddenly leapt off the wall
and ran down the hall with a startling, shuddering clatter. I hardly had time to notice Igor
unclip a line from the bottom rung before my
attention was diverted elsewhere. One brother
wheeled in a covered barrow and left it near
our table. Slowly the top opened up like the
sail on a Chinese junk, a door opened on a
front panel, and ten of us were watching a
Punch and Judy show, the puppeteer completely hidden in this folding, wheeled puppet
stage.
r\ bushel basket hanging from the rafters
started to spill orer with onions; real, bouncing onions which pounded onto the table,
floor, heads. and shoulders underneath until
the basket was empty. Aburlap bag burst, spilling water that barely missed a patron as it
splashed to the floor. Another bag dropped.
opencd. and a five-foot wooden marionette.
operatcd somehow from outside thc hut. stood
up and walked over to a table. We watched in
breath-stopped silence as it rose into the air
and came gently down onto the table, then
walked along thc surface for a few feet before
it hopped up to disappear in the rafters again.
Thesc images and incidents, and many of
the others throughout the evening, happencd
seemingly without human aid. It was almost as
22

To&T

if The Hut itself, the title character, \ras performing these tricks for our pleasure, alternating with the very human skills of song, music,
magic, and puppetry constantly offered by the
other performers. A cupboard was opened
twice in qUick succession, with completely different contents each time. The hanging lamps
all went out with a loud bang and came back
on a moment later, swinging in unison, giving
the momentarr impression that we'd run
aground somehow or had been tipped over
and set right.
[n an extended sequence, Petr offered to
show some of us a home mO\~e. Other people
complained they couldn't see the black-andwhite image of the Forman boys as teenagers
(probably filmed by their famous father, Milos) projected on a piece of paper up on the
\rall. so he mored the projector down the hall.
keystoning the image. More good-natured
complaints. so (acting in partnership with The
lItll) he merely grabbed the wall and pivoted a
twenty-foot section of it around to restore the
image to a square. Just as we all shifted seats to
\ratch the film. the paper screen burst into
flame from the centre, revealing a marionette
stage on which we sa\\ a high-speed,
Eurovision-style parody of everything that had
happened so far. There were marionettes of
each character, ranged in sizes to force the

perspective of the tiny theatre. We saw a miniamre hail of onions, Lily singing. Igor pla~ing
etc., all done to a recorded techno beat with
operatic vocals. It ended \rith the magician
(tile real one, looking Godzilla-sized in compaJison to the maJionettes) slowly sticking his fuzzy,
cigarette-puffing head up into the puppet tileatre.
Not all the performers were human, either. As well as the chickens, there was a crow
who could undo Lily's dress straps, a little terrier who did nothing but lie on his back motionless as Igor and Lily argued, a SiaJllese cat
who tore through the marionette daJlce routine, and Charles, the Marabou stork. He fle\r
into the hall unannounced and the world
stopped. Seen at distance of only a few feet,
tltis majestic, prehistoric bird, looking grave
and comical all at once. caused a profound reaction. He \ras so hard to accept as real. \\'ith
his black plumage like an undertaker's suit,
his bare legs, and his clacking bill like a Venetian carniral mask. As we watched, not daring
to make a sound, he filrned his brown eyes
slowly towards us, and watched us. He climbed
onto Lily's shoulder before swooping awar
again, Ilis wings a good eight feet across. Especially after seeing so many contraptions, puppets and marionettes, and hearing so much
recitation, song and music, the simplicity of
this :I\\e-inspiting creattlre was as great a dramatic contrast as aJl~lhing I've ever expelienced.
The subtitle of the performance was
"wine, music and soup." The bar was open all
evening, and there was a constant bustle of actirity in the corner as Philippe the barman and
the other company members served drinks
and \\ashed glasses. At sereral points this was
used comically; once Igor had to wait for a
whole noisy dishwasher run before he could
recite his favorite Czech reading. Philippe
apologiZing the whole time.
The music in the show was constam and
raried. When [ went back to see it a second
time thcre was a guest singer, a young woman
from Prague who sang Gypsy songs with an urbani!)' that reminded me of the singer k.d.
lang. This made me consider that the whole
theatrical form that this company has developed is much more solidly rooted in a musical
attitude to performance than in a theatre or

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