Undermän was simply outstanding. It was poignant, honest, and funny. I was worried that it would be some kind of a 'man show' about how awesome it is to be a dude. And while there were definitely some very manly moments, it was never macho. If anything, it showed a tenderness that is rarely expressed by men on stage. They even made me cry. Add to that the fact the these undermen were their own musicians (with a little help from cellist Andreas Tengblad), and you have an impressive and inspiring evening.
The show is casual. It begins slowly with each artist arriving in their own time (Andreas, late) and beginning to play music. There is no rush and the audience is left to keep chatting. When the moment is right, the shift can be felt and the show begins in earnest.
To set the tone, Mattias Andersson tells the story of how he met his love and his flyer. It was beautiful, funny, very romantic, and all the more heartbreaking when it falls apart. Each underman tells his story at some point in the show. This could have become very old very fast, but each story is told in a unique way and varies from quite long and detailed, to quite short. I absolutely adored how Peter Aberg jumped between solving a rubik's cube and the complicated and frustrating communication game with his ex. He continues to explain the many variations you need to know in order to solve the problem depending on how it presents itself, and that that was the last four and a half years of his life.
And while the music, staging, and theatre of the piece are all wonderful, there's still the question of what it is three porters are going to do without a flyer. The easy answer is other disciplines. And there's a bit of that. But they most definitely take the idea of porter-without-flyer to heart and exploit it brilliantly.
The first thing that comes to mind is the kettle bell juggling. I know a number of porters who use kettle bells for training and so the idea of flinging kettle bells around fits perfectly. And when you find out that the damn things weigh between 24 and 32 kilos, it's all the more impressive.
Photo by Mattias Edwall, Mats Bäcker
I also found Mattias Andersson performing his old hand-to-hand routine without his flyer to be a particularly poignant moment. At first, it was silly. And as a circus artist, I could tell through his actions what moves he was executing. Suddenly, it was like he was doing his act with a ghost and the effect was quite moving.
It wasn't all sad songs and pining, of course. The club juggling act was technically great, and just loads of fun. And the music! The lyrics (Super duper and artistic, robot, robot, spin, twist) just slayed me. It's nice when a show doesn't get too caught up in itself.
But most impressive of all was the hand to hand. Yes, these three big burly porters did hand-to-hand with each other. There was a brilliant group act where they performed a lot of the classic artistic transitions you see in most hand-to-hand acts (hilarious) as well as actual skills. And while there was an obvious choice of who would take on the role of flyer, that choice was promptly ignored and every one of them acted as both porter and flyer.
Photo by Ludvig Duregård
One comment I heard from others who have seen the show is that they would like to get the women's perspective on the failed relationships. And I can see that, but I didn't feel like the men were really blaming their former partners for what happened. Well, Peter made it sound a little more like his ex-girlfriend was high maintenance, but Mattias' story just sounded like a love that fell apart. And Matias really only mentioned that he's not as angry as he once was. Then there was Andreas... he couldn't tune his ukulele so he dropped a kettle bell on it adding only that he too had issues... For me personally, I'm comfortable not knowing the women's side of things and I feel that there were treated fairly. After all, broken hearts are far from black and white.
This show was the last of the festival for me, and I couldn't have asked for a better way to cap it off. A truly beautiful show that left me feeling really inspired. To say that we need more shows like this would defeat the purpose, but I really feel that it's important that there be a show like this out there right now. Thank you so much, undermen. And if you have the opportunity to see Undermän, don't miss it!
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