Apple Lobbing

When Sean Gandini brought a troupe of performers to the Fringe some 20 years ago, the reviews were ecstatic. One paper even went so far as to claim that they were changing the way juggling would be perceived thereafter. Fast forward two decades and this prediction hasn't quite come to pass, although we learn upon meeting Gandini that the journalist responsible for the line was among the previous evening's audience. It's with a resigned sigh and a wry smile that he says he expects to read the exact same line when he next visits a news stand.

Will juggling ever be accepted as high art? Certainly, the reception afforded to Smashed since its debut three years ago suggests that Gandini and his rotating cast of collaborators are, as ever, on the cusp of achieving this elusive honour. Perhaps because of the work's overt nods to seminal dance choreographer Pina Bausch, or the Dadaist intensity of its conclusion, it's been embraced by intellectuals all over the world. “Somebody even wrote a thesis on the show,” remarks its creator with a mixture of confusion and pride. “I don't understand a lot of it.”

The key to the piece's unprecedented success is its relative simplicity. What begins as an elegant fusion of circus and dance eventually strays into the territory of visceral physical theatre, as nine supremely coordinated jugglers are torn apart by insecurity, tension and hostility. It's appropriate that a show centred on juggling should have balance as its main theme, but otherwise, Smashed is open to interpretation from all angles. Children can enjoy it as a charismatic hour of invention and buffoonery, while its slapstick often takes on darker tones in the eyes of adults.

“A big part of the show is someone not letting you do what you want to," Gandini explains. "You're showing off with your juggling, but that power can be interrupted and used in many different ways. This was a theme of Pina's, that sense of a performer's inherent power and how it can be abused or obscured by somebody else. People describe her work as 'theatre of cruelty', due to its idea of somebody getting in the way while others attempt to get something right.”

This is certainly the plight that most controversially befalls Smashed's minority of female performers. After first being wooed by their counterparts, they find their ability to perform gradually hampered until their bodies are contorted against their will. Gandini recalls a performance in London's Royal Opera House, after which a formal debate was held: “There was a woman who writes a feminist blog in the audience and she said that she found the abuse scenes gratuitous. But then the writer of a different feminist blog said 'No, I disagree! I think they're absolutely right.' What I found intriguing was that they started having an argument between themselves about the nature of the themes. To me, that's exactly what I hoped to achieve. Some people say 'Oh, but it should resolve!' I quite like the fact that it doesn't. In the real world things don't resolve.”

Such is the man's commitment to realism that he thrives on the possibility of defeat and is often delighted when cast members slip up. “There's a complete risk of failure when we perform,” he admits. “The juggling we do in the show is reasonably straight forward for most of the performance, so we take a calculated risk. The opening parade rarely has any drops, but for us it's better if there's at least one because we can establish the sense of failure.” How many errors are ideal? “It's a balancing act. Things need to be clean for the chaos at the end to work. The nature of the show is very theatrical.”

Gandini compares elements of his work to director Pier Paolo Pasolini's notoriously harrowing Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom, a film intended to indict the pillars of society and aspects of human nature responsible for the rise of fascism in Italy. Although it's a family-friendly crowd pleaser, Smashed is equally concerned with exposing the horror, chaos and misanthropy that lie beneath the quaint formality of social customs. To this end, any mistakes made by those on stage are welcome cracks in an otherwise benign façade. Only when the veil slips away completely does the audience glimpse the extent of the dysfunction that lies beneath the masterful showmanship.

A carefully considered work of great beauty, it's no wonder that Edinburgh Fringe audiences are the latest to salivate over Smashed. With its extremely high approval rating, it's become something of a modest cash cow for its creator, allowing him to bankroll a host of new projects, the latest of which is a commission from the Royal Ballet in London. Set to feature equally matched quartets of ballet dancers and jugglers, Gandini is hopeful that a crossover will result in greater acceptance of his chosen discipline, but respectability is clearly the last thing on his mind.

“Generally, juggling is entertainment which hasn't always been seen in the best light," he says. "It's interesting that even reviews which say our show is fabulous are prefixed by comments to the effect that one wouldn't expect to enjoy an hour of juggling. On the one hand, we believe that juggling should be thought of in the same way as ballet, where they manipulate the balls of their feet. However, if you didn't know that our cultures respected ballet, it would seem absurd.”

“Well,” he concludes, “there's nothing wrong with the absurd.”