Pina Bausch’s Palermo, Palermo has one of the most audacious openings in theatre. A full-height breeze block wall barricades the stage, then slowly sways backwards and topples, thundering its bricks onto the stage. Dramatically speaking, it’s a hard act to follow.
But she does. Amid the rubble, Bausch reflects on Sicily, with rubbish-strewn streets, obsessive foodies, casual violence and Mafia intimidation but it all goes through the mincer and comes out resembling its source material about as much as a salami resembles the pig it once was.
Salami makes an appearance here, stuffed down someone’s sock (as you do). Actually, there’s a lot of meat in this show, metaphorically and literally. A man gives the impression of slicing off a portion of his arm and fries it on a steaming iron; a dog trots on stage and eats a picnic. On a more vegetarian tip, there’s also an attempted suicide by spaghetti. It’s all in a night’s work for Tanztheater Wuppertal.
This penultimate work in the current Pina Bausch season displays all the alienating and absurdist tendencies of Eighties Bausch. Self-flagellation? Check. Manhandling of women? Check. Eccentric tableaux, wild imagination, hitting the nail of human neuroses on the head? Check, check, check.
Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch/ Palermo ends tonight (0844 412 4300, sadlerswells.com).
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