Face, then fist, then thigh-first onto the stage tumbles Leo with a silent and excellently choreographed crash. This show doesn’t just defy gravity; it defies reality. A man, a suitcase, a wayward tie, and a hat with boomerang tendencies fully inhabit a space that belongs somewhere between cognitive logic and a chapter in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. In this case, the suitcase is the rabbit hole. The show begins with a man lying down next to one in an empty room. Paired with this live scene is a life-size projection of the same man, and the same suitcase, but seen through this video portal he’s standing upright. On a split stage, both perspectives continue throughout, and Leo’s adventures are viewed through a movie camera turned on its side. Confused? You will be.
Your world will be turned upside down as you perversely peruse normality through the eye of a lens. Daniel Briere’s ingenious direction transforms the 2D world of television into a multi-layered, complex world of humorous and haunting dimensions. By the end, you’ll wonder why you paid so little attention to the real-life chap squirming around on the floor. Perhaps that’s the point though: TV dictates and determines the way we see reality. And, of course, I’m being incredibly facetious by implying that all Tobias Wegner does is squirm… it was his idea after all.
Whatever train of thought you take, whichever perspective you choose, you will be equally dazzled, disorientated and disturbed by the physical force that is Leo, contained within the walls of a three-sided box. You must, every one of you, take a forward tumble through the rabbit hole of Wegner’s imagination into a land where anything is possible.
