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Berlin

Bullyache
A Good Man Is Hard to Find

by Dorion Weickmann

The conference table setting is reminiscent of Crystal Pite’s boardroom thriller The Statement, but things get significantly more intense here: In A Good Man Is Hard to Find, the choreographic duo Bullyache stages a sort of "survival of the fittest" contest. Instead of verbal attacks, a brutal physical rhetoric is employed. First, five men lie down on the floor, one after another, until until they aremanhandled by their own kind, then hauled upright and spruced up in suits. Only to go for each other’s white collars afterwards, watched by the window cleaner.

Presented at Berlin’s Sophiensæle in its German premiere, the piece portrays humiliation and revenge, futile attempts at harmony (via ballroom dancing), and escalation through the medium of physical theatre. It is as if Lloyd Newson’s heirs are at work here—intense and deeply impressive—right up to the final chapter, a kind of paraphrase of the ritual sacrificial dance in the vein of Le Sacre du printemps. Hard to find good people? Bullyache has assembled a top-notch team for its mission.

www.bullyache.com