fringe: leo

circle of eleven's gravity defying leo
Let's get one thing out in the open, right from the start, Leo is brilliant!

Which is only to be expected really, since Circle of Eleven brought us Soap last year, which was also brilliant!

It's also one of those shows which either partially defy description or else just has to be seen to be believed.

It's a simple enough premise, there's the world of the performer, Tobias Wegner, on stage, on a set with a red right hand wall.

Then there's the world that exists within the projection screen on the other side of the stage... the world where the floor is red and everything is turned 90 degrees.

And you watch as Wegner starts to explore both the red wall and red floor worlds at the same time which is often hilarious.

I think it may be one of those shows that may be better viewed from somewhere other than the first ten rows... you kind of need to be far enough back that your eyes can see both the screen world and the real world at the same time. We were sitting in the front row and there was a lot of looking left then looking right, and I'm sure we missed things in both worlds because of that.

At times you forget that Wegner doing something "ordinary" in the world of the red floor, actually means that he's doing something extraordinary in the world of the red wall.

Even though you know exactly how he's doing everything in the world of the red floor, your brain still behaves like it's real, so when he appears to be defying gravity, you buy it even though you can see him lying on the floor in the real world.

Then Wegner brings out the chalk... and creates a world within the red floor world... brilliantly, given that for the most part he's laying on his side or stretching while keeping one foot on the floor while drawing.

And then they start playing with time and everything gets a little... dark.

I won't spoil it by going into any more detail than that, but suffice to say that that section held the audience spellbound.

But when the show did finally end, there was thunderous applause and much stomping of feet.

It's just that good!

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