“You have been evicted. You have five minutes to gather up your most prized possessions in a shoebox…” Based on this idea, KUMULUS creates a temporary participatory theatre company, with workshops for around twenty local amateurs who share the stage with professional actors. RENCONTRES DE BOÎTES is a fascinating and daring adventure, exploring intimacy and communication.

Actors sit in twos, face to face around fifteen tables, while the audience freely walks around the minimalist scene. The first box is opened and a voice begins a five-minute monologue in an unknown language (known as “grommelot” (mumblish)). Gestures, looks, intonation, onomatopoeia and objects are used in snippets to give a partial and fragmented understanding of what is said. The box is closed and the audience begin to move around again. Another song rings out from a different table. The multiple voices of these expressive, transitory pairs are mingled and intertwined, repeated and answered, becoming a single choir, full of raw emotion that cannot be expressed in words.

In this free yet fragmented community, with a mix of professional and amateur actors, speech is released from the boxes like a flurry of moving stories that end up making sense together. Our view of the current exodus of migrants will probably receive a touch more humanity, a saving grace in this selfish and inward-looking age.