Compagnie Maguy Marin triumphs with May B, their physical interpretation of Beckett
Imagine yourself sitting inside Sadler’s Wells, enveloped in absolute darkness and serenity. A baritone voice begins to hum Shubert’s art songs filled with suspense and sorrow. Suddenly, your hearing becomes extraordinarily sharp, almost as keen as a beast’s. You hear someone coughing, someone sighing, and another zipping up their jacket. You feel a bit annoyed: is the audience always this loud and noisy? This sensation creates awareness and alienation: you belong to a group sharing the same state—the audience—yet it is you who feels that such state is disturbing, preventing you from enjoying the show. You are alone.
This peculiar and uncanny feeling of being-alone-in-common subtly echoes the show’s explicit nod to Samuel Beckett, a writer known for exploring absurdity, existentialism, and the human condition. Premiered in 1981 with choreography by Maguy Marin, May B ingeniously re-examines Beckett’s legacy, together with the show’s own thinking on spectatorship through fluid physicality and a seamless incorporation of music.
With an ensemble of ten (Kostia Chaix, Kaïs Chouibi, Lazare Huet, Daphné Koutsafti, Antoine Laval, Louise Mariotte, Lisa Martinez, Alaïs Marzouvanlian, Isabelle Missal, Ennio Sammarco) all wearing pale, ashen makeup with dark hollow eyes, May B keenly displays strong self-reflexivity on its relationship with the audience. The ensemble sometimes stares at the audience for more than a minute in absolute darkness and silence (usually, such eye contact requires shared-light). Other times, they swear at the audience with meaningless sounds. There’s also a moment where the audience are fooled around: a mini “interval” where most of the audience start to applaud, thinking the show is over.
However, this playful teasing is kind rather than genuinely “offensive” or aggressive. By the end of the show, the swearing even feels familiar and endearing, signifying a connection that has been built. During the curtain call, the ensemble does not dispel such aura and magic, lingering on the audience with their gazes. This connection intriguingly echoes the line from Endgame: “Finished, it’s finished, nearly finished, it must be nearly finished”, which not only indicates a Beckettian scene of endless repetition but also the tantalising relationship between performers and spectators.
Of course, this does not mean their physicality is overshadowed. The ensemble continuously showcases intense physicality and incredible synchrony with a Lecoqian methodology. The show can be roughly divided into three parts: a straightforward (perhaps a bit blunt for a British audience) orgy presentation accompanied by the carnivalesque music of Gilles de Binche, fighting scenes echoing Schubert’s compositional legacy, and a final repetitive, looping farewell featuring Gavin Bryars’ “Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet”, implicitly dedicated to Waiting for Godot. The ensemble maintains great synchrony even without music or a beat, requiring them to count their own beats to remain consistent and uniform, which is actually extremely difficult. Compagnie Maguy Marin again illustrates the adeptness and prowess of French physicality.
The entire design is minimalistic and neat, with a simple standing blackboard and three doors possibly signifying a prison. This image is reinforced in a scene where the ensemble moves slowly in a circle after hearing the sound of a whistle. Don’t try to figure out a precise “narrative” or symbolism; otherwise, you might get lost. Instead, focus on the flow and the rhythm that echoes Beckettian repetitive, cyclic nature—try to écouter their bodies.
Louise Marin designs the beige, earth-toned costumes for two-thirds of the show, hinting at the dancers’ status as prisoners. These costumes transform into working-class clothes with suitcases in hand in the final part of the show, another tribute to Beckettian characters who are always waiting, enduring, and heading somewhere else. Personally, I would appreciate it more if all the music were live, including the baritone, but it is also understandable if the company’s emphasis is solely on their bodily presence and physicality.