I’m almost late for my first theatre review, as I shake out my brolly at Battersea Arts Centre’s box office, whilst picking up my press ticket for TANZ by Florentina Holzinger.
There’s a jar of earplugs on the desk, almost empty.
A chill-out space is also available, should things all get a bit much.
I down half a glass of complimentary wine on my way to the Grand Hall, which burned down on my 37th birthday, but has since been restored to better than her former glory.
Max sits next to me. Max is also a reviewer¹, and hands me a flyer for her forthcoming book². I ask her how long a theatre review ought to be, and she says 300-500 words.
I’ve almost already written that much, I tell Max, as the lights dim.
Coincidentally 300-500 is also the number of people that are sitting in this very full room. A voice announces:
“WELCOME TO TONTS"
Which answers my pronunciation question.
The stage is expansive and white.
A piñata hangs from the ceiling, alongside lots of suspicious rigging.
Some cereal is spilt on the floor. There are six buckets.
What appear to be bloodstains pattern the vertical rear of the auditorium.
Lots more will be thrown at the wall tonight. Almost all of it will stick.
The general setup reminds me of a show I twice saw almost exactly ten years ago called Splat!³, which had quite a transformative effect on my life in several different ways.
I put this recollection down to my inability to enjoy things without comparing them to other things.
A very French ballerina is wearing a flesh-coloured microphone and little else. Her elasticated mic pack makes it look as if she has a black-belt in ballet.
Her microphone is picking up quite a lot of saliva noise, which I know can upset some people, but tonight this will be the least of their problems.
She instructs the rest of the cast in a romantic ballet class. The lesson becomes more prurient, before a roving camera, capturing increasingly vulvic closeups, is turned upon the audience.
I spot Veronica Thompson limbering up at the side of the stage.
The other nine naked dancers I do not know.
BAC is a relaxed venue⁴, and 30 minutes after the show begins a woman walks in with a pizza. I am sure this isn’t part of the show because she is fully clothed.
Thom from The Lipsinkers⁵ shows up at 8:35pm. Torrential rain this evening has caused transport chaos in south London. A nude woman with a red broom runs past Thom.
There’s also a cauldron onstage, and it was Halloween yesterday, so I wonder if these witchy elements may have been added especially. I’ll have to see the show twice to be sure.
Thom manages to find a seat, and other latecomers will continue to arrive until 8:45pm.
Veronica joins the cast onstage, and together they form a human pyramid.
There follows a brief flying sequence.
Suddenly everyone is masturbating, possibly including some of the audience.
I’m too busy scribbling notes, in a homemade notepad so as to avoid using my phone. It’s very dark though, so I have no idea if any of this will be lalgebral.
Veronica is placed into a magic box, and transforms into a baby. I suspect this might be autobiographical⁶.
Tonight is the UK premiere of a show which has very recently been performed to great applause in Kyoto, as well as selling out theatres in cities across Europe for the past three years, which, in a cynical attempt to pad my word-count, I shall now list:
Vienna, Ghent, Lausanne, Madrid, Berlin, Ludwigshafen, Aarhus, Warsaw, Athens, Hannover, Utrecht, Rotterdam, Basel, Hamburg, Düsseldorf, Brussels, Frankfurt, Antwerp, Munich, and Ljubljana.
By the time you read this TANZ will have already completed a further run in Stockholm.
These three nights in London have already sold out, which I hope means it was a worthwhile risk by BAC. It’s an ambitious show to stage, and even with a triple full house they likely still won’t make a profit, based on some guesstimates I just did in my head.
Veronica is now hanging by her hair, spinning in circles in the air.
I’ve seen her do this before⁷, but am no less impressed.
She is small but powerful, like the trimtab⁸ of an ocean liner.
Two motorbikes hang from the ceiling, their headlights on.
“Let’s take a little break to reflect.”
The audience laughs as Florentina Holzinger (known colloquially as Flo) addresses the audience for the first time. She reminds us that this is a relaxed performance and that we can go for a toilet/bar break if we like.
There are a few walkouts, but Flo literally just asked for it.
I shall be taking no toilet or bar break. For you, my readers.
Flo asks rhetorical questions.
Max nods, as she asks if anyone has ever taken a dance class.
Flo pays a quick tribute to the Queen.
I laugh the most when Flo invites an audience member to live in a forest she’s started in Austria.
Her monologue concludes:
“I want to give you a little thank you, which is a dance.”
The 1992 dance anthem Are You Ready To Fly by Rozalla plays, as the stage begins to fill with smoke.
It’s the end of Act 1.
[READERS, PLEASE FEEL TO TAKE A TOILET BREAK]
Act 2 contains, among other things, a wolf costume, rodent dildonics, a gaming chair, and the instrumental version of the Ghostbusters theme.
There’s a lot to unpack, but, before we get the chance, cabaret star and erstwhile karaoke host⁹ Lucifire has two hooks carefully inserted into the fleshiest parts of her back, before being suspended in the air like a glorious piece of meat.
The audience cry:
OH!
AH!
NO!
and
OH GOD!
Maybe BAC should have provided a jar of eye plugs.
This is a bit like something from Glasgow in the noughties¹⁰, I think, as a woman is carried down the stairs beside me and out of the emergency exit, perhaps to the chill-out space. I see another man fall to the floor, face first.
The faintings have begun.
I wonder if they’ll be serving Bloody Marys in the bar afterwards, as spectators continue to drop like flies.
The still-conscious section of the audience gives Lucifire a cautious applause, which feels a bit salacious.
The Crazy Frog theme plays, as a cast member smashes the piñata, which may or may not represent the patriarchy.
“We have done a lot today”.
Flo says, bursting the tension. The audience laugh, partly in relief.
135 minutes after the show began, I feel more like a war correspondent than a theatre reviewer.
We have been thwacked by the visceral, and some of us may never be the same.
It’s been an immense and maximalist show, and I’d like to see it again, but not tonight please.
I’m on the aisle, so I quickly exit the Grand Hall after the third standing O¹¹, to check the demeanour of the departing crowd.
The audience exit looking pretty pallid, although many of them looked that way beforehand, and this might partly be to do with it being Halloween.
“I’ve never seen anything like it!”
exclaims a woman at the bar, clearly shellshocked.
Meanwhile the atmosphere in the gents is very subdued.
I ask my friend Katy if TANZ reminded her a little bit of anything, and she immediately said Splat!
We reminisce about how difficult that show had been to tour, and decry that UK artists no longer have access to the kind of European funding structures that have made TANZ possible.
But Katy and I are old and have seen too much.
For many of the audience it seems to have been a life-changing experience.
This year Battersea Arts Centre won The Stage Magazine’s Theatre of the Year award, and it’s because of impressive work like TANZ that they will continue to receive acclaim.
I applaud BAC for bringing this complicated and multi-genre show to the UK. There’s clearly demand for more dates, and maybe next time BAC could partner with an even bigger auditorium, such as the Royal Opera House.
Back in the bar someone hugs Lucifire, who winces slightly, but evidently has thick skin.
I hang around (not by the hair) to buy Veronica a congratulatory drink, before skipping into the night to see if the trains are working, the impact of this physically accomplished spectacular continuing to be felt long after I finish this sentence.
That was en pointe.
This show contains cunning stunts.
FOOTNOTES
1. totaltheatre.org.uk/archive/reviews/richard-dedomenici-did-priya-pathak-ever-get-her-wallet-back
2. strangeattractor.greedbag.com/buy/mcxjqd
6. theargus.co.uk/leisure/stage/15509687.fancy-chance-from-abandoned-orphan-to-cabaret-star
7. londontheatredirect.com/musical/la-soiree-tickets
8. wikipedia.org/wiki/Trim_tab#As_a_metaphor
9. youtube.com/watch?v=m_7aw3o9yvk
10. liveartscotland.org/wp-content/uploads/Richard-DeDomenici-Live-Art-in-Scotland-version-2.pdf
11. Ovation, not orgasm
ENDNOTES
TANZ is the third part of a trilogy.
Find out more about the previous two works here.
Flo’s new show Ophelia’s Got Talent is on in Berlin until December 22nd, and has a helicopter in it.
TANZ credits here.
Richard DeDomenici is an olive-skinned, penis-owning theatre reviewer and performance artist of mostly southern European descent, who is usually granted full white privileges.
In the interests of full disclosure Richard DeDomenici has worked with Battersea Arts Centre on several previous projects.
The PR who invited Richard to review the show sang vocals on aa record Richard once made.
Veronica Thompson and Richard have collaborated on a diverse array of collaborations.
Richard did not get paid for this review.
Veronica Thompson will soon appear in Killing Eve: Redux.
This is Richard’s first and possibly last theatre review. To commission Richard to review your show, contact:
To write a review of this review, use the comments section below.
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