The Besançon-based company embraces the historical theme of utopians from Franche-Comté (starting with Charles Fourrier) to create a spectacular and shared dramatized meeting where actors blend in with the audience and spectators get to have their say. From phalansteries, to “familisteries” (another type of building designed for utopian collective living), mutualism, socialism, anarchism, self-governance, humour and irreverence, in Mr Kropps, the discussion obviously focuses heavily on community and collective living. As always in the all-terrain work of Gravitation, an alternative to the “performance forum” is created with this participatory production of a debate on collective living, covering major contemporary social and political themes.

This action-oriented theatre at the exact crossroads of the struggle and the psychoanalysis of the city, explores everything from the limits of participatory democracy to the absolute need to dream about new utopias, eat waffles and above all, let ourselves laugh about it. Mr Bernard Kropps brings back the mutualist and utopic idea of collective living by inviting his future employees to discuss his plans taken straight from the ideals of French philosopher Charles Fourier. His motto: “When you work at Kropps, you live at Kropps”. Today they need to decide on the size of the apartments. Mixed in with the audience is a crew of characters, including François and his calling for community living, the former hippy, Gilbert, who extols social and economic realism, Florent and his large family, and Caroline, who believes in striking the right balance. It feels like a real meeting, where words and ideas are bounced around. Audience members also get to join in, adding their two cents to the highly improvised performance. It is a fascinating example of using humour to put things into perspective, theatrical balance and an off-beat all-terrain take on the value of these ideas that are more subversive than ever.