Harms Fault!

We have it! Harms’ illogical machine. A contraption that smashes glasses, plays symphonies and triggers stories, incidents, and motifs from one of the last representatives of the Russian avant-garde, Harms-Šardam, Kharms, Dandan, Harmonius… or whoever. Actor, puppeteer, and musician Matija Solce, through gentle animation of soft, realistic puppets, as well as through grotesque cabaret and instrumental passages, weaves a situational comedy that, in an ironic and gentle way, challenges and
provokes contemporary stereotypes and criticizes everything that strives for stability in society.

Justification of the selector:
Daniil Harms is one of the most popular authors of absurd reality that sucks us in, and theatres are trying to catch it by the head or at least by the tail. In this world of madness and illogicality, the performance Harms Fault! is more Harms than Harms himself and is one of the best stage responses to the author’s and our displaced world. In this multi-layered deconstruction, Matija Solce very skilfully builds a puppet collage of a recognisable literary material and wraps it in an
insanely rich, extremely interesting and extremely chaotic expression, in which the travelling puppeteer and musician merge and intertwine around one (and perhaps several more) completely deconstructed accordion.