Gravity didn’t stop DynamO Theatre

For most people, coming up against a wall can be a very flattening experience, but for DynamO Theatre of Montreal, a wall can be the backboard for an extraordinary theatrical event. Last night at the Maine Center for the Arts, the five-person troupe cut loose in “Mur-Mur,” a surrealistic theater-acrobatics show that is performed in conjunction with — you guessed it — a wall.

“Mur” is French for wall, a slab of which was the centerpiece of this work. The actors climbed the red-brick wall, ran into it, jumped off it, leaned on it, crawled up and on it, rolled against it and hid behind it.

They were upside down and sideways. They walked on their feet. They walked on their hands. They had chicken fights and constructed a human sliding board. Once they even created a pattern on the floor that looked as if they were playing double-dutch jump rope with their bodies.

They were the Three Stooges, PeeWee Herman and Baryshnikov all in one.

They leapt, flew, bungee jumped, tossed (each other) and did any other verb you can think of that means “to move in ways that look like ballet, tight-rope walking, break dancing and circus antics.”

Each of the performers excelled in some area of gymnastics and clowning, but Robert Drouin, who played the mischievous little brother Ralphie, was ultra amazing. His legs were so rubbery and his body so wiry that he looked as if his bones might melt at any moment. He raced around the stage like a hyperactive child who just drank a six pack of Jolt. Several times he was thrown into the air and landed flat on his face only to jump up and gleefully go back for more.

The show was a clever and breathtaking collection of movements, but it was also a reflection on adolescence. A wall, after all, can mean different things to different people, especially teens, and these performers found most of those meanings. In this slice of “a day in the life of some teens,” the wall was a place to hang out, write graffiti, kiss, dance, fight, play ball and tease friends. There were serious moments, but they quickly moved toward the comic, and every moment segued naturally into the next.

The DynamO team told more of a tale in one hour of expressionistic movement and a minimum of words than most theater groups tell in two hours with full scripts. This is exactly the type of incisive, imaginative theater that young adults should be exposed to. It speaks directly to their minds, hearts and experiences in ways that TV and many children’s theaters often fail to do.