L’Effet de Serge
This is one of the most French pieces of theatre ever created. Even if Ionesco wrote a play about a singing nun miming baguette making while sipping coffee and smoking unfiltered Gitanes while Briget Bardot parkours over Godard while he eats an orlean to protest the minimum wage allotted the unemployed it wouldn’t come close to achieving the aloof sublime of L’Effet de Serge.
Seeing this show on Sunday evening was a fitting book end to our week of Under The Radar shows. In a festival of productions which sometimes struggle with limited budgets this show thrives upon a lack of means. It could have been subtitled a”A Celebration of Scarcity”. The plot, what little there is, centers around Serge, an amature performer specializing in short form special effects improvised with readymade products one doesn have to buy at a special “stage-craft” store. His friends arrive every Sunday at six to see his performances, which last from one to three minutes.
In a way this play is a reenactment of the entire Under The Radar Festival; a small cast, in this case a single frenchman, performs a series of short perplexing performances employing a variety of inventive D.I.Y. techniques for a small audience, all of whom know each other, they enjoy the work but have trouble expressing exactly why. And that’s more or less how we felt about the production; it was clever and artful, it stretched our minds and made us ponder but ultimately may leave some wanting a bigger punchline. The charm of Serge’s morbidly low level of affectation may eventually wear a bit thin for some, and though the “climax” is hilarious for some viewers it may not live up to the Sysephian set up. But we are not some peopllong live Vivarium Studio! Long Live Philippe Quesne!
Conceived, Directed and Designed by Philippe Quesne
$15 tickets at 3ldnyc.org or 212-352-3101
3LD Art & Technology Center 80 Greenwich @ Rector, NYC