Derevo, Anton Adassinski's shaven-head clown outfit, has won itself a cult following across the world since it was founded in Leningrad in 1988, and picks up prizes at festivals the way the rest of us pick up colds. That doesn't mean everything that emerges from its Dresden headquarters is exceptional. This 1992 piece, performed as part of the London international mime festival, is a case in point.
Perhaps if we had seen it before either the aggressively energetic Red Zone or the touchy-feely Once it would have made more impact. Here it emerges as a scrappy, embryonic work with flashes of unsustainable brilliance. Most importantly, whereas the fairytale Once stayed just the right side of whimsical, this piece often strays the wrong side of fey. Physically, the work lacks the razor-sharp precision that gave Once its edge and made it so memorable.
According to Adassinski, The Rider is inspired by the life of the itinerant actor: "people who have so many characters and performers inside them that they hardly know any more who they are". This lack of stable reality is reflected in the way that the stage is magicked into a playground, an enchanted place where doves sit on trees and griffins perch on a flimsy toy castle that transforms into a toy theatre. A princess, a pierrot, a sailor, a couple of giggly Gretchens and an old man with a fairytale beard drift across the landscape, occasionally interacting and always throwing off their masks and changing into other shapes and characters. One of the marvels of the piece is that there are only four performers but a cast of thousands.
There are some intriguing, cheeky set pieces: the bearded man's insane, glorious attempts to fly, caught in mid-air while Edith Piaf sings No Regrets; a violent fight between two men in which neither of the protagonists actually touch each other. This is a place where the guns are toys and the water upon which the sailor sails his boat is imaginary.
This idea of shows within shows is neatly done, but there is not enough to carry an 80-minute piece. Without greater intellectual ballast or the helping hand of narrative, the evening quickly slides into a series of episodes, only some of which are meaningful and hit the mark. Like the absurdist ditty A Whiter Shade of Pale that the show uses, this is a light fandango, nothing more.
