Review from: Circusstad Festival, Theater Rotterdam – Krijn Boon Studio, Rotterdam; 3rd May 2025, 13.30
Made especially for young audiences, this charming show from Grensgeval and Circus Katoen presents an hour of naive play between two performers, portraying siblings or best friends (Willem Balduyck and Sophie van der Vuurst-de Vries), who keep infants and their parents enthralled throughout.
A small and irregular white ceramic marble rolls on stage and the two players, prone on the floor, puff it backwards and forwards, sometimes collaborating, otherwise competing, conjuring up games between them. Who can blow the marble into a circle of light? Can the marble be kept in play without running into the audience? Inadvertently the marble is crushed, its fragments entrusted to a child in the front row for safekeeping. A second marble rolls onto the stage and is now thrown and caught by the duo with delightful childish wonderment and exploration.
More and more of these irregular ceramic balls roll on stage, some smaller, some bigger, some with a mind of their own, some that even bounce. The duo attempts to maintain control, scooping balls into their t-shirts, attempting to make piles, filling the hands of the watching infants. There’s the challenge too, in their bare feet, of not stepping on the balls that would hurt just as stepping on a small pebble does. This, of course, turns into a game. Like hail, ceramic balls drop from the sky to be caught, dodged or showered in.
By the end the stage is covered with uneven balls in different sizes and materials. The perfect conclusion at the end of the show is inviting the watching children on to the stage to help sort the balls into the right boxes, an invitation the children enthusiastically embrace.
The performers can seem overly naïve to an adult, expressing perhaps too much wide-eyed wonderment, but the children in the audience are rapt in the moment. My one quibble, should the wooden bench seating belong to the company, is that an hour spent on a narrow plank is hard work.
Concept and direction: Hanne Vandersteene, Mahlu Mertens, Sophie van der Vuurst de
Vries, Willem Balduyck
Acting / acrobatics in alternating duos: Sophie van der Vuurst de Vries / Willem
Balduyck / Liza Van Brakel / Kevin Benavides Hidalgo
Costume design: Jana Roos
Design balls: Alice De Smet
Lighting design: Geert Vanoorlé
Sound: Karen Willems
Assistant director/production: Leonie Moreels (internship)
Production & tour management: Simon Monbaliu
With the support of (in alphabetical order):
C-Takt and Musica
Circuswerkplaats Dommelhof
Cirklabo
De Tax Shelter
De Vlaamse Overheid
Miramiro
PERPLX
Perpodium
2 Pôles Cirque en Normandie / La Brèche à Cherbourg – Cirque-Théâtre d’Elbeuf (Fr)
