Theatre on a spectacular scale will come alive on the streets of Cork with a little help from Frankenstein, writes Belinda McKeon.
The crowds are coming to the latest production from Compagnie Jo Bithume, and miniature bonfires are lighting their way. All along the narrow road that leads to La Paperie, the sprawling hilltop base of the acclaimed French theatre company in the Loire valley, little groups of friends, young families, and couples are beating a path towards Victor Frankenstein, the mammoth project the company has been developing over four years.
Watching them trek towards the elaborate outdoor set, built to look like a shipwreck in three large, moving parts, there seems something almost numinous about the scene; all these people, in the near-twilight, appearing as if from nowhere and walking quietly and happily towards the site, as small fires burn in barrels to push the chill from this night in Angers.
These people are simply walking from the nearby car-park, of course, but the effect sends a shiver down the spine just the same.
For company managers Alain Taillard and Ingrid Monnier, however, the effect is primarily of relief; such numbers are needed for what they hope to do tonight. "I'm hoping for 500 people," says Taillard, and earlier in the evening, surveying the vast space of the empty grounds, this might have seemed a lot to expect. But suddenly, those 500 people, and perhaps even more, are here, wandering between the ship's sections as they wait for the show to begin. "We know the troupe," says a young couple from the town down the hill as they examine a huge, tattered sail on wheels. "We come because they are original, and they are different. Beau et magique." Not words that are often applied to the story of Frankenstein and his monster, but the Jo Bithume company, it seems, are about to change that.
The members of the company are keen to stress that tonight's event is not a performance, not a full production, but what they call a series of repetitions or rehearsals; an airing of a work long in progress, and nearly ready for its final unveiling.
That will happen in Cork next month, as the Jo Bithume company brings Victor Frankenstein to Grand Parade for its world premiere. It will be the second in a series of four major premiere productions in unconventional locations around the city, brought together by Corcadorca as part of Relocation, its spectacularly ambitious project for Cork's year as European Capital of Culture. The first of those premieres, from Polish company Teatr Biuro Podrozy, took place last night in the panoramic setting of the Elizabeth Fort. Not unlike Victor Frankenstein, which will open on June 2nd, What Bloodied Man is That? will combine music, pyrotechnics, circus artistry and street theatre on a grander scale than anything familiar to Irish audiences.
Corcadorca's own contribution to the project, The Merchant of Venice, will literally traverse the city as part of Cork's Midsummer Festival in July, when the freshly restored façade of the city courthouse will become the setting for Shylock's final scene.
Lastly, Scottish company Grid Iron will take its audience on a tour through the kitchen of a city hotel with The Devil's Larder, a ruthless exploration of Western society's relationship with food.
With the project, Corcadorca seems intent upon banishing those complaints which have plagued Cork's year in the spotlight; mutterings that the much-hyped culture is nowhere to be seen around the city, that the people themselves feel shut out from what is taking place.
Relocation is a project in the city and about the city; the participation of the people, meanwhile, is essential to the successful realisation of each of its four projects.
With a long history of creating theatre in corners of Cork associated with anything but theatre - Fitzgerald's Park, the gardens of Fota House, Patrick's Hill and the stretch of the city's marina - Corcadorca is a company with experience of bringing the art into the spaces of life itself, into the sites of the things that make up ordinary days, thereby transforming those days - and nights - into something extraordinary.
The funds provided by Cork 2005 for Relocation have made it possible for Corcadorca to deepen its commitment to adventurous, accessible site-specific theatre by reaching out to companies in countries where the tradition of such theatre is both richer and more established.
In Poland, Teatr Biuro Podrozy is regarded as the most experimental company of its kind, while Grid Iron has won one award after another for productions in its native Edinburgh and beyond.
Compagnie Jo Bithume, meanwhile, is one of the world's largest off-site theatre companies, and has travelled the globe with its staggeringly elaborate outdoor productions. From fossilised cars to fire-cracking horses, from vast orchestral escapades to boats and forests suspended and moving above the heads of the audience, the company commits itself to ideas which must seem unachievable on paper, but which have worked magnificently - so far.
Like Corcadorca, the ensemble behind Jo Bithume believes firmly in bringing theatre not just to everyone who wants to experience it, but also to those who feel theatre is probably not for them. And floating whole landscapes in the sky is certainly one way to grab the attention of all.
But another way is by making clear to the audience that the theatre being created belongs very much to them, and such is the purpose of tonight's performance in Angers. Asked whether the locals who have come here had to pay for their tickets, Alain Taillard almost shudders; even the notion of tickets, it seems, strikes this joyously socialist company as an anathema. Socialist, that is, in the most naïve, optimistic sense familiar to many travelling theatre troupes, with their caravans and their clothes-lines scattered all over the company grounds, their children growing up amid tightropes and trapeze wire.
His co-manager, Ingrid Monnier, after several years living in the nearby town, has finally bitten the bullet and moved to the company's base with her partner and two small children; they've been living here just five days, and little Emile and Irene are still on a high. As they run between the performance space and the spacious caravan which has become their home, I notice other children who have come to see the performance gazing at them with what can only be envy. And indeed, to grow up in such a place, surrounded by such creations, such energy on a daily basis, must be an experience to envy. But La Paperie is open to all children, in a sense; its circus school, fully accredited and with some 250 students, is buzzing with young clowns and acrobats when I peek in, and, like the company's considerable workshop spaces, it invites companies and individuals from all over the world to use it. Since it was established, 10 years after the company itself, in 1992, this working area of the Jo Bithume site has attracted a number of Irish artists.
Compagnie Jo Bithume sleeps, eats and drinks theatre - there's even a resident chef, and the whole company comes together in a large rehearsal room for meals every day - and when it creates a new production, it aims to get things just right. This determination is evident partly in the fact the company only produces a premiere once every four years, and partly in the arrangement which sees crowds climbing the hill, tonight, to La Paperie.
For the past two nights, the company has been showcasing elements of Victor Frankenstein to similarly large and attentive audiences; this is the penultimate stage in a production process which began in 2002 when the two directors of the project, Pierre Dolivet and Michel Lherahoux, sat down together with ideas on the theme of creation and monstrosity.
Before Cork, before opening night, the company wants to make sure all parts of the production are as clear and as effective as they can be, and so an advertisement went into the local papers recently inviting people to come to the company's base on these three nights, have a look at how the project is shaping up and, afterwards, share their opinions and critique.
As they arrive at the venue, members of the company mingle in the crowd, distributing questionnaires to be filled out at the night's end. The questions are detailed, and sometimes blunt: which scenes worked, which didn't, which were too long, which came across as unclear.
But one question stands out, especially to an Irish viewer relatively uninitiated in the art of large-scale, site-specific theatre. It's not a question you're likely to be asked after a night in an Irish theatre (although, in some institutions, maybe it should be printed on the back of tickets). Did you, it asks, at any time, feel your personal safety to be in danger?
The question has to be asked because of the immensely physical nature of Victor Frankenstein. It is physical, that is, not in the sense of simply being there in front of the audience, a monolith of solidity, but in the sense that a human body is physical - ever-moving, ever-changing, and ever-unpredictable.
Which is apt, given that notions of the body, of its susceptibility to manipulation and modification, were to the forefront of Dolivet's mind as, laid up with an injury which ended his acrobatic career, he conjured up the first inklings of the show four years ago.
Transformation was the theme on which he worked with Lherahoux, and the show itself is a spectacular embodiment of the possibilities of artistic and imaginative transformation; as the scenes - masterfully acted and beautifully lit - unfold, so too do parts of this enormous set, the ship's stern and sail becoming a castle, a classroom, an executioner's scaffold, and literally moving through and around the spellbound crowd as they do so.
In response, the audience shifts and spills into new spaces, new configurations, reluctant to miss a single gesture, a single moment of struggle between the fraught creator and his doomed creation; though the night is billed as a selection of scenes, in fact the company has decided to exhibit the show in its entirety, and the response is good.
Small children on their parents' shoulders make up a good part of the audience, and even they remain attentive throughout its 75-minute duration, although there are a few frightened cries when Frankenstein's creature wreaks his first scene of havoc. Though not a likely subject for a family show, its visual brilliance, along with the lively humour of some of the performances, means it works well as such.
Afterwards, small groups of parents and children stand around with the rest of the audience, talking animatedly, leaning on each other's backs and shoulders as they fill in their questionnaires. No, they didn't feel their safety to be in danger, say those I talk to; the moving set was ably guided through the crowd by members of the company. Yes, they did find some of the scenes a little confusing and over-long; they'd like to see those edited in the final cut. And no, they wouldn't change a thing about the moment of the monster's awakening; it was, they say, unforgettable.
Nearby, the directors watch with appreciative eyes; the last pieces of their giant jigsaw are falling into place. Their minds are already en route to Cork, where the whole picture will finally be revealed.
• Admission to all shows in Corcadorca's Relocation project is free but ticketed through its website www.corcadorca.com. The first Relocation show, Teatr Biuro Podrozy's What Bloodied Man is That?, is at Elizabeth Fort, Barrack Street, Cork, until May 25. Victor Frankenstein is at Grand Parade from June 3 for three nights. Shows start at 10pm. The Merchant of Venice and The Devil's Larder will run from June 14-25 and July 4-23 respectively
Location: the challenges ahead
Theatre Forum's annual conference will this year take its theme from Corcadorca's Relocation series. Titled Locations, the conference will take place on June 16th and 17th at the Institute for Choreography & Dance in Firkin Crane, Cork. It will bring national and international practitioners and experts together for debates and seminars on topics including the need for international audiences, the status of fringe theatre, site-specific work, opportunities in Irish theatre for foreign nationals, and technicians' views on the safety of Irish venues. Speakers will include Romanian theatre and opera director Silviu Purcarete, Ugandan actor George Seremba, and the new director of the Dublin Fringe Festival, Wolfgang Hoffman. For more information contact the Theatre Forum at 01-8746582 or see www.theatreforumireland.com