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ABERYSTWYTH ARTS CENTRE 25 - 30 September 2006 U-Man Zoo: The Parcel After 3 years lost in the post, U-Man Zoo are finally re-delivered to Aberystwyth Arts Centre in The Parcel, the company’s first new work since the extraordinary and highly acclaimed Water Banquet. Part labyrinth, part sorting-office, The Parcel is the temporary lodging of stray communications; a place of refuge for the undelivered gift; a holding-house for the essential but fragile transaction of ‘From Me, To You’. Here, broken connections are patched with sticky tape and string; half-stories are glued to possible endings and mis-directed gifts are bubble-wrapped and sent upon their way. If the real human economy is one of giving and receiving, then clearly the postal service needs all the help it can get….. The Parcel is open daily in Gallery 1 as a labyrinthine installation (entry free) and in the evening at 7.30pm hosts performances for an audience of 25. Early booking recommended (tel 01970 623232), tickets £7, £5 concession (NB: no evening performance on Monday September 25)
Chapter Arts Centre U-Man Zoo: Water Banquet / Aqua Impura at tactileBOSCH 16 - 19 April 2003 Reviews
David Adams, The Western Mail, The National Newspaper of Wales, April 28, 2003 The title - Aqua Impura - might sound like some new age drink from
a multinational engineering company. And indeed the venue, a disused
industrial site at the end of a cul-de-sac in Llandaff North, didn't
really look the sort of place you'd find off-the-wall performance.But
then, the name of the group whose production this was isn't exactly
conventional. All I knew on going to see the production was that I had
been invited to some kind of "foodless dinner", as it was
described by Chapter Arts Centre in Cardiff, sponsors of the event.
There were only 18 guests invited and came the hour we were led by a
corps of black-and-white waiters and waitresses to our places around
a long table and we were served rather pleasant Pernod-style aperitifs,
a coloured iceball creating an attractive swirling purple cloud in the
cocktail glass. At first it was not obvious the tabletop was, in fact,
filled with water. But when a young girl stepped into it and paddled
from one end to the other we suspected this was not going to be a night
of Big Macs.When we are asked to choose from a menu that had dishes
such as Creation of Nine Flowers, One Hundred and Sixteen Forks and
Eight Millimetres (my choice of three courses), then we knew it wasn't
even going to be a Delia experience.Indeed, it was quite a remarkable
occasion, this water banquet. Each guest had a choice of three items
in each of three courses and so, of course, there was a variety of "dishes"
that mixed the visual, the aural, objects and actions - opposite me
a young actress was delighted with a mirror, a glass, a torch and a
pair of headphones while next to me a freelance caterer was more than
satisfied with a floating plate that had a whole paradise island, including
an alka-seltzer for a volcano. And down the table they had to hold umbrellas
to protect them from a plastic bag of water that was burst to reveal
not just a shower but an egg. Are you following? It's far more than
just an unexpected and witty variation on a dinner or a succession of
acts or tricks - it is a journey not just from aperitifs to digestifs
but from childhood to age as the maitre d became the host, leading us
through memories and experiences.The links between the rituals of dining
and those of theatre have been much explored before but Aqua Impura
manages to be quite different.You can feel, as I did at first, that
everyone else's choice from the menu is more interesting than your own
(as director Richard Downing says, just like life), but the experience
becomes deeper and more meaningful as the night goes on.This really
was a shared experience, no more just for avant-gardists than it was
for foodies.By far Aberystwyth-based U-Man Zoo's most accomplished work
to date, it was a three-hour delight - and cost far less than any gastronomic
treat. Zoe Hewett, Theatre in Wales, April 17, 2003 If U-Man Zoo were to open Aqua Impura as an actual restaurant it would certainly be of the highest imaginable standard, far beyond the star rating of Egon Ronay, and could certainly teach the British service industry a thing or two about how it should be done. Invited to our seats by immaculately dressed waiting staff, each guest was promptly offered a blue Pernod, symmetrically served, one by one in opposite directions along both sides of the extraordinarily beautiful water table. The provision of menus offering Beginnings, Middles and Ends, began a ritualistic performance in three courses. With each guest ordering a different combination of menu items the evening's experience was unique for every individual. My choice of 'Kinder Pinata', 'The Man Who Planted Trees' and 'Here and Now in a Then and There Sauce' is highly recommendable. My first course involved a ladle and a plastic bag to fill with water from the table, which, once full after being passed around the table, was hoisted into the rafters on a meat hook and burst, with a long sharp-ended pole, cascading water over the table and a few guests, to obtain the egg from inside the bag. Containing blue liquid and a piece of paper memorabilia, the egg was broken into my glass, and tweezers provided for the easy removal of my gift. Without wishing to give too much away, the following courses involved flowers, projections onto plates, photographs and films fading in the water, audio stories on headphones, dancing and the gradual positioning of one hundred and sixteen forks on the table, in the rain. It is wonderful to see, and be on the receiving end of service from people giving simple pleasures so generously and with such humanity, that it does not matter that what they are offering might be a child-like mixture of salt, food colouring and a twiglet (although it was funny to see some guests enjoying the role-play so much that they became quite choosy over which type of dried-lentils they wanted to garnish their inedible meals - because they could!). Flavoured with many small, sumptuous treats such as pictures inscribed with poetic messages, the precise story of these apparently nostalgic items did not matter to the banquet, just that they referred to a story or past was enough, because the delicate, perfectionist hand movements and mannerisms of the waiting staff set the right tone for such an object to become a truly simple delight, for its guest to ponder at will. These fragments of narrative were important to the piece as otherwise there would be nothing to serve as such (and it would be a less individual experience for each guest), but the main joy and focus for much of the event was the actual serving itself. I could not help but imagine the very, very young waitress in the team, twenty years from now as a successful personality of some kind being interviewed, saying "When I was about eight, my parents made me walk along this huge table full of water, putting flowers made of carrier bags into vases in front of all these weird people", and how hilarious it would seem. Water Banquet is a fantastic combination of the childish and the civilised, adult, and a pleasure to spend time sitting through a slow burning yet well-paced piece, with a climactic, magical finale. It makes its audience aware of our typical dinner-party behaviour, and demonstrates sensitive use of currently fashionable and often overused technologies, film and video projection. I defy anyone who sits at the Aqua Impura table to leave not feeling totally enchanted. Delectable!
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