Paris Fringe 2026
Low Down
You know the feeling: just a few more little things to tidy up, and you’ll finally be able to breathe. Luka knows it too. Often. He does everything he can to keep things from spiraling out of control. He takes cold showers, answers emails on time, sorts his recycling… You get the picture. It all makes him sick, but he has no choice: so many things need to be done, sorted, reorganized, and processed.
Review
Luka Piletič stands before us holding a small brown cardboard box. He begins his monologue slowly and calmly telling us about his life, what he does every day, what he likes to do and the ordinary things we must all do. While speaking he takes one of the scores of ping pong balls from the box and drops it gently to the ground. This is a continuous process and we listen and watch where the balls carefully roll across the stage towards us. Piletič has a neutral presence, which allows the audience to react to his never ending list of details and ponder that we encounter these things to – or someone we know does. At times Piletič looks philosophical as what he says matches the dynamic of how he rolls the balls, sometimes they bounce!
We eat well, he tells us but then we are told to stop eating avocados and take medicine instead, the life cycle of a human seems to deteriorate but life continues nevertheless, year after year. It becomes clear that the modest white ping pong balls become a kind of metaphor for his life as he rolls two balls together and starts to group them on the ground, as if in different families. Piletič begins to change mood about what we all, as humans have to look forward to in the future. His mood intensifies and the balls are thrown across the space and suddenly they are airborne and many at the same time!
Now what? We await our trusty leader to tell us more about the value of life but he is not forthcoming. We have witnessed his frustration and the build of the show and now we are in the home stretch. Piletič has more surprises and the last quarter is perhaps the most pointed. What is our response to his rant? Occasionally Piletič breaks a mild smile, pausing to look at us, while in action on the stage and we hold on to any expression for a hint of what might come next.
This is a fascinating theatrical one person social survey by a talented actor with good timing and a sense for the absurd. The energy dips in the middle as audience members start to fidget and this may be due to the soft volume used by Piletič which could benefit from being louder to fill the dome tent space of the venue. At the performance I attended he presented in french, the next performance would also be in french, with the third and final performance is presented in english.
No one could predict what happens next but Piletič makes a strong point about society that is not only meaningful but also entertaining and dramatically and mischievously philosophical!
