Argentinian dance music greets us as we enter the space for two-man physical theatre experience Un Poyo Rojo, but the vast majority of the show takes place in silence. This does not take away from this gloriously funny and neatly executed hour of dance and athletics, which subverts both heteronormative love stories or traditional distinctions between dance and physical theatre.
It’s stunning to look at and terrific fun.
Directed by Hermes Gaido, Aurora Nova’s production was a great success at Fringe 2017 and is now back with a new cast member and just as much sass and vigour as before. On a dark stage decorated sparsely by a couple of gym lockers and a bench, two men, Nicólas Poggi and Luciano Rosso, begin trying to one-up each other in a series of increasingly complex acrobatic and balletic moves. Sometimes they are in perfect sync with each other, sometimes their movements are in stark opposition. With no music, it is an incredible feat of collaboration that the two performers never fall out of step.
Then what seems set to be an hour of masculine, stylised dance suddenly takes an unexpected turn. Rosso, a fantastic clown, begins to play with his face and body to highly comedic effect and the show turns into a farce. As the two men get changed into wrestling gear amid long pauses and awkward silences evidently meant to demonstrate the reality of the locker room, it becomes clear that Rosso’s goal is not to beat but to seduce the unwilling Poggi.
This was the part of the show which I found a little difficult. There is many a laugh in Rosso’s pursuit of Poggi and once they move back to dance the technical prowess of the two men is still extraordinary. Nevertheless there is something a little grating in watching someone constantly pushing their body onto someone else in a way which can hardly be described as consensual - and to be invited to laugh at it. The point, I suppose, is to show how the culture of masculinity can make men afraid of their true desires, while also drawing attention to the homoerotic nature of sports. I just needed a little more reassurance from the stern-faced Poggi that he was, on some level, into it.
The other wonderful touch of Un Poyo Rojo is the inclusion of sequences involving a live radio, again presumably meant to realistically reflect the time-killing dynamic of a locker room. Poggi twists the dial through serious discussions of Brexit politics on Radio 4 to lighter arts entertainment to various music channels. In response, Poggi improvises beautifully and hilariously, riffing off the words being spoken and whatever song might come on to affect his movements. I assumed the radio must be pre-recorded, but apparently the pair always use live programmes, adding an immediacy to that part of the show.
Un Poyo Rojo is stunning to look at and terrific fun. For anyone who wants a physical theatre show which is also capable of self-deprecation, this is well worth a look.
