Review from: Circusstad Festival, Schouwburgplein Chapiteau, Rotterdam; 30th April 2025, 15.00
In a sweltering tent, full to bursting, some 250 people crammed onto bench seating watch a casually dressed, seemingly fit and able man enter the stage through a door and, in silence, take a preposterously tentative approach to ascending a shallow flight of 22 steps. It will be a hard sell for me to suspend my belief that he can easily walk up them, but, within seconds, I am sold as Manel Rosés slips and slides, stumbles and rolls in perfect failure. This is bruising comedy acrobatics of Buster Keaton quality, man at the mercy of inanimate objects. Shoes slide uncontrollably and things break that shouldn’t. An interlude with a trampette questions our approach to challenge and bravado
Manel’s attempt to leave the stage through the door is rebuffed by unassailable gusts of wind that leads to the first of several intriguing, witty and well-crafted reflections, spoken here in English and with good word play, on the world of the performer. Is he in or out, is the audience in or out?
The Meccano-kit like construction of steps is now split into two with the trampette added in the middle for an agile acrobatic contrast to the first section, including a first-rate descent of the stairs in handstand. Manel talks delightfully about the creation of the section, admitting candidly that the piano music ‘is cheesy, but people like it’, and that some moves are stolen.
It’s time now for a wonderful repeating descent of a flight of stairs that each time somehow leaves him higher that where he started and results in a change of costume and character en-route. What happens if one does nothing? Should one leave the comfort zone? A playful shoe shuffle then a tap dance in handstand leads to the final trick.
From Barcelona and trained at the Stockholm University of Dance and Circus (DOCH), Manel’s beguiling personality, technical mastery, witty wordplay and reflections on the routines and happenstance of life make for an all-round entertaining 40-minutes that puts a spring in your step as you carefully make your way down the steps to leave.
