The Enigmatic Clown

A Capsule Review of L'Homme de Hus

By: Indigo Porebska-Smith

Brought to the Vancouver Playhouse by the 2019 PuSh Festival, Camille Boitel, in L’Homme de Hus embodies a dynamic character who endures constant self-induced disaster and corruption of sanity while exploring the boundaries of physical exhaustion.  He begins with the simple task of setting up a chair and table. However, the task is not as straightforward as it seems, as every object soon misbehaves violently against him. 

The piece escalates profoundly as ten, twenty, then fifty sawhorses are dragged onto the stage.  Boitel interacts with the sawhorses in a multitude of ways: they are carried about, tripped and climbed on, and thrown in a pile.  Each time the objects are manipulated they are brought to life as supporting characters in the show.  Boitel extends his work from the stage, using every nook and cranny of the theatre including the catwalk and loading bay as a space for performance.

After this first scene the intention of the character is made known to the audience; he is driven but somehow incapable of fulfilling any task.  He is constantly getting in his own way, his reality skewed by desire.  The nonsensical, sporadic spoken word leaves this piece to be primarily visual which encourages the audience to explore subtexts and alternative narratives.  I found L’Homme de Hus to be a physical mapping of the mind of someone who struggles with mental instability or disability.  This was demonstrated over and over by the frantic and chaotic nature in which Boitel moved about the space and interacted with objects.  

At times, I found myself and others laughing at the ridiculousness of a scene, which made me question why we, the audience, found this piece humorous, and why we were so ready to laugh at human suffering.  Should another’s pain be laughed at?  If so, is it only ok when contained within a performative arena?  Though my questions remained unanswered by the end of the show, it provided ample space for self-reflection.  L’Homme de Hus brings to light important questions surrounding the morality and ethics of humour through its deliberate use of struggle and failure.