Food Court - Odéon

FOOD COURTGenre: Contemporary TheatreShow duration: 1 hour without intermissionIn English, surtitled in FrenchFor thirty years, the Australian company Back to Back Theatre has championed visual theatre that examines the power dynamics of the social world.

Inspired by a true story, Food Court tells a tale of humiliation: two women conspire against a third until her annihilation. From this cruelty emerges a show of striking yet unsettling beauty, revealing violence in its simplest terms.

The Australian company Back to Back Theatre, directed by Bruce Gladwin, has been developing ambitious visual theatre for over thirty years, whose glimmers and echoes report the cruelty of the world.

Composed mainly of performers with disabilities, it scrutinises the flaws of the social world, the interstices where violence engulfs and crushes the most vulnerable.

Inspired by a true incident that occurred in a shopping centre, Food Court tells a trivial story of harassment, whose narrative alibi can be summarised as follows: two women conspire against a third with the aim of humiliating her – a methodical relentless pursuit leading to psychological and physical annihilation.

From this abrupt cruelty, Back to Back Theatre orchestrates a show of beauty as striking as it is troubling, which, far from warding off violence, exacerbates its effects.

Over the hypnotic layers of the post-jazz trio The Necks – improvising live each evening – the fragile brilliance of the images, carried by clever lighting and projection work, rivals the crudeness of the insults and bullying.

Food Court is thus constructed as an ingenious kaleidoscope that diffracts humiliation, reduced to its most elementary terms – oppressors and victims, power and powerlessness.

Director: Bruce GladwinCast / programme: Devisors Mark Deans, Bruce Gladwin, Rita Halabarec, Nicki Holland, Sarah Mainwaring, Scott PricePerformed by Mark Deans, Sa