I’ve never had a brother myself but here everyone IS a brother!
Set in a Spanish monastery, two monk brothers welcome us in, both wearing the traditional monk dress – a long brown gown, and a dark bob wig. And of course, a monk’s favourite companion, a donkey.
The backstory is deliberately sparse: one monk is the overlooked youngest son of a noble family, while the other claims to have been “born in that field.” What matters far more is what happens once they begin interacting with the audience. With their strong clowning background on full display, Luján and Hortigüela confidently roam the room, commandeering audience possessions, testing the limits of their microphone and investigating who among us might be “doing the bidding of Satan.”
There is, apparently, serious work to be done before the abbot returns. Counting yellow lentils becomes an important task, with the audience drafted in to help, but the pair’s increasingly chaotic attempts to maintain control provide most of the evening’s fun.
The near-full house only adds to the experience. A lively, giggling audience gives the performers plenty to play with, culminating in a wonderfully chaotic storm sequence that feels almost entirely fuelled by the crowd’s energy. Luján and Hortigüela are excellent at steering this unpredictability, remaining both playful and commanding while never dropping character.
The storyline itself is slight, but that hardly seems to matter. Monks is really about presence, play, and the relationship between performer and audience, and both performers have charisma in abundance. Beneath all the silliness, the show eventually finds its way to a surprisingly warm and touching conclusion.
Clowning depends on the performers being willing to commit completely and an audience willing to go along for the ride. Monks has two performers who give it everything, and a crowd more than happy to follow them into the monastery.
Monks, 19:35, Lime Studio at Greenside @ George Street, August 7 – 29 (not 16 and 23)
