Festival
DANCE & PHYSICAL THEATRE
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HOTEL PARADISO Masks, mime and murder on the menu with Berlin-based Familie Flöz
It’s not a description that would tempt many holidaymakers – ‘a cross between Fawlty Towers and the Bates Motel’. But come August, Hotel Paradiso, this year’s offering from Berlin-based Familie Flöz, is open for business at the Pleasance Courtyard. Devised by artistic director Hajo Schüler
along with the company, the piece combines mime, movement and masks to tell the story of a family enterprise falling apart at the seams, due to the untimely appearance of some dead bodies. According to Schüler, the company’s creative process begins by looking at physical responses to a given situation. ‘Before we start to speak, a lot of things happen in our
mind and body: we have a thought, the tension changes, we inhale – the spoken word is a consequence. What we do is try to make those things visible.’
As well as being inspired by classic physical comedians Buster Keaton and John Cleese, Schüler takes his comic cue from the grizzlier side of life he believes is in us all. ‘Dark themes are human, they are in every one of us, that’s why we can laugh about them,’ he says. ‘In the end Hotel Paradiso is just a family story, brother and sister, love and hate.’ (Lucy Ribchester) ■ Pleasance Courtyard, 556 6550, 8–31 Aug (not 17), 3.15pm, £12 (£11). Previews 5–7 Aug, £6.
6–13 Aug 2015 THE LIST FESTIVAL 53
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