Colchester Fringe Festival 2025
Re: Re: Reincarnation!
Gumbo
Genre: Theatre
Venue: Headgate Theatre.
Festival: Colchester Fringe Festival
Low Down
Gumbo revive a masterpiece especially for Colchester Fringe, and bring it home in style.
Review
It’s a welcome return to Colchester Fringe for GUMBO, Japan’s premiere troupe of surrealist comedy. Revived especially for this year’s Colchester Fringe, the piece is the comedic journey of a woman reincarnated across three different lives that consume her in paranoia, dependence, and altruism. Her search for happiness and an escape from the karmic cycle is continually interrupted by Mr. Master – a careless, lazy, and irresponsible man stuck between this world and the next who teases the woman in her seemingly fruitless pursuit. That official description conveys nothing of the surrealist wonder that this company create on stage, and the costumes, including sperm battling to get to the egg, are hilarious! The ensemble, including Ryo Nishihara, are experts in comedic physical theatre.
In tackling such issues as eating disorders, Gumbo throws enough slapstick and manic energy to bring home the point that people, especially women, are often stigmatized by societal expectations. A quartet of “Midwife Angels” deliver each reincarnation with wonderful movement and style. She faces challenges at every point, accused of being overweight she starves herself, Japanese culture is affectionally lampooned as in her search for a husband she meets a ninja, a samurai and a sumo wrestler. Lead creative Kayo Tamura interacts with the audience playfully, a wonderful comedian, though I wish she would stop trying to seduce my husband! As Mr. Master, Noah Alfred Pantano is suitably grotesque, disrupting the narrative very much as a s a pantomime villain. Perhaps because we are used to Western satire of greed and malevolence, the energy does shift when he is on stage, perhaps as audiences, we do want to enjoy more Japanese culture and archetypes.
At times the show feels like an animated Manga cartoon, with the props and costumes being wildly over the top. But this is trademark, classic Gumbo, and the piece feels fresh and relevant. The audience participation is handled extremely well, the audience supporting those chosen by Gumbo with loud encouragement. Having seen a different show of theirs, Shunga Alert, in Edinburgh this year, I know the company have much more up heir sleeve to bring to Colchester for many a year!
