Review: Sawdust Symphony

Three men walk onto an unassuming raised platform, holding buckets of wooden planks – and what unfolds from there is rather incredible. Wood, hammers, nails, a lathe, and chainsaw are used to craft objects in real time, and wordlessly, the boundaries of the space we initially observe begin to shift, stretch, surprise. 

Sawdust Symphony is described as a “collision of carpentry and circus” – but “collision” doesn’t quite do justice to the delightful and perfect alchemy that makes this performance feel at once like it organically blooms from the materials and craft onstage, and like it’s transporting you elsewhere with the wondrous surrealism of its immaculately conceived set-pieces. (Behind the scenes footage, please!)

There’s a live action Looney Tunes energy to its brilliantly original slapstick stunts that can’t help but stir spontaneous applause from the audience, alongside some beautifully choreographed dance-focused moments that make a balletic, lyrical tribute to man’s relationship with his tools. Always riveting, it’s not just that this show is technically breathtaking with what it achieves: it’s that the world it creates manages to be emotional too, populated by fully formed characters, even if they never speak. For the mundanity of its tools – logs and planks and hammers – it is beautiful to look at: clouds of sawdust illuminated by soft golden light, one scene with glinting nails humbling even the most expensive of light shows. (Not to mention the endearing wood glue demon.)

The kind of magical that’s best experienced without too much revealed beforehand, Sawdust Symphony is genuinely miraculous: it will spin you out into the world with a renewed childlike joy, the belief that anything might be possible. Not just for the DIY enthusiasts – everyone deserves to see it.