Fools' Paradise is staged by director and set designer Giacomo Ravicchio, who has created this melancholic, grotesque tale about humanity in dialogue with the painter Michael Kvium.
Giacomo Ravicchio brings the characters to life and creates a brutally honest and tragicomic caricature of a society where deeply lonely people arrogantly conduct themselves with selfishness, self-promotion, greed and lust for power.
Like the artworks, this performance also resembles life itself. Aided by laughter, we can freely mirror ourselves in the exaggerated creatures and their absurd actions, recognise ourselves and each other in them, and understand how their anger and malice conceal a sense of loss and fear of being overlooked and pushed out of the community
It is all done with great compassion.
And regardless of whether you are familiar with the world of painter Michael Kvium, the performance Fools' Paradise offers a unique and quite different theatre and art experience.
Komkusnt.dk
One by one, they enter the stage, each carrying a yellow oil drum. They climb inside the drums and are only visible from the waist up. They are painted white and wear tight white jumpsuits that emphasise every curve of their bodies as they let it all hang out. The background is deep blue. These are vivid reproductions of the works of painter Michael Kvium. These strange works were created by an uncompromising artist. FOOLS' PARADISE was created in an ongoing dialogue between the director and theatre magician Giacomo Ravicchio and Michael Kvium.
The 70-minute performance is an overwhelming experience. Afterwards, it is difficult to find your way back to yourself. The theatrical journey has taken us far away. Out into the big wide world and very close to home. We have looked into a magic mirror and seen ourselves very clearly. More clearly than most people would like. Kvium's works and motifs are iconographic. They are unlike anything else. Once you have seen them, you will never forget them. He is controversial, and opinions about his works are divided. He asks questions, as the best art does. He lets us see ourselves, and what we see is not flattering. His gaze on us, and thus on himself, is merciless. He is not a pleaser.The same applies to the performance FOOLS' PARADISE, but its storytelling is irresistible. Time and again, we are struck by awe. Yes, it is ugly, disgusting and repulsive, but at the same time deeply fascinating. There are some artists who insist on doom, such as the great German visual artist Anselm Kiefer, where all hope is lost, and yet one leaves his visual works feeling uplifted. The same is true of Kvium and even more so of Giacomo Ravicchio's bringing the works to life. When great art spreads its wings, it can soar high above the misery and doom it focuses on. This happens in FOOLS' PARADISE, where there is no end to all the terrible things that humans harbour and expose themselves and each other to, and yet it is a joy to embark on this theatrical journey. There is no real plot. Instead, there is a series of tableaux and small situations that tell us everything about being human. These are not always pleasant stories, for they are tales of what we harbour when everything external is taken from us – and when we let it all hang out. There, in the midst of despair, we encounter ourselves and each other. This meeting between the Italian theatre director and the Danish painter is particularly successful. It is the cold north meeting the warm south. It may sound like a cliché, but it is nonetheless in this clash that poetry arises, and all that is dark and grotesque finds its own music and spreads out in an overwhelming palette of colours. This is brought to life superbly by the five actors.
There are so many surprising tableaux, so many little shocks and surprises throughout the performance that the experiences come thick and fast. It is a fine team performance. The five on stage are incredible. They are fascinating in their own way. Their different physiognomies are captivating and very Kvium-esque in all their stripped-down nakedness. Kvium is indifferent to external appearances. It is the naked human being that preoccupies him. What is a human being? Who are we as human beings? Why are we here at all? Can we contribute anything that makes a difference? He does not seem to think so. Instead, he focuses on our unquenchable desires, self-will and jealousy. Our pettiness and inhumanity. Or rather, he insists that it is precisely our inhumanity that makes us human. But there is little hope for the survival of the human race. However, the way he depicts us, it is not a great loss.
Once again, the miracle happens: even though abandonment and doom are insisted upon, one emerges purified from the experience. Art is so powerful that it creates its own bridge forward. This becomes even clearer in the theatrical version of Kvium's visual world. It is art that can actually save us, even though we are clearly doomed to destruction. But perhaps there is hope after all, when it seems so enriching and revitalising? Try it for yourself! You are never the same after encountering Kvium's visual works – especially after encountering FOOLS' PARADISE.
msvennevig.blogspot
"Fools' Paradise": The gray suits make the performers look like single-celled amoebas. Asexual until one gets the idea to put on a pair of underpants with a little tap. Tonight I am in the company of a strange and absurd universe. The performance "Fools' Paradise" is physical theater of the highest order. A personal gallery built around Michael Kvium's grotesque artworks.
They ramble with humorous puns
The performance is subtle and humorous in its absurd story about man. As physical theatre, the 5 performers on stage depict humanity as a pack animal. Confused and anxious when one person stands out from the others in the group. The 5 actors' characters are like simple-minded primates who, for the first time in the history of life, have to form languages and roles. They do this through small imitations of each other. The moment after, the community dissolves, without anyone reaching an understanding of either themselves or each other. Every action is without consequence. A judge sits in his barrel and with great pathos he rattles off incomprehensibility, - dissolves all meaning of the community of language, because he says nothing that makes sense to anyone.
The play bites in its satire
Death is a recurring theme in Kvium's universe. Most often in the form of figures who try not to deal with their own existence. The performance "Fools' Paradise" deals very precisely with this dark side of man. This side from which the well-known painter often depicts humanity and society. The grotesque where the meaning of existence dissolves and the ballerina princess must try to immortalize her name, without bothering to recognize her own existence here and now. The performance is both serious, humorous and imaginative.
I am captivated by the charm of the simple person gallery. The dark humor that exposes man's absurd attempt to avoid the anxiety of being is liberating. At the same time, the humor dissolves the meaning with its own expression, when the characters have to act in the shadowland with their backs to death. I like the mix of dark satire in the physical theatre, the simple nature of the clown in the comedy, the lively puppetry and the melodious voice in the music.
Kulturnyt