REVIEW: ANATOMY OF SURVIVAL at The Place 24 September 2025

‘a sharp reminder that survival in the modern world often looks absurd’ ★★★★

I confess, I first mistook The Anatomy of Survival for a dance piece — understandable, given it was commissioned and co-produced by The Place. In fact, it resists such labels. What unfolds is not a play, nor quite a dance performance, but something closer to a show in the best interdisciplinary sense.

The premise is deceptively simple: a woman walks into a café and asks for a coffee. The barista doesn’t understand. The situation unravels. From this trivial exchange, co-directors Frauke Requardt and Vivienne Franzmann build a satirical and surreal journey that examines how fragile our shared reality really is.

The humour, the stylised design, and the slightly manic rhythm all carry the flavour of Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel. Props appear with precision, reality slips into absurdity, and at times the performers morph into creatures with bear paws or heads. A drummer punctuates the chaos, while two dancers and an actor shuttle us between the everyday and the unhinged.

The company promise to “experiment with the audience’s nervous system” — flashing lights, sudden noises, jolts that trigger our primal reflexes. And yet I kept wondering: why Anatomy of Survival? Is it about the nervous system protecting us? Manipulating us? That question lingered unresolved.

Still, I found myself entertained and drawn along by the woman’s journey. The piece is word-driven, with the text describing and the movement amplifying. Personally, I would have welcomed a tighter interweaving between words and movement. Yet perhaps the refusal to settle into a clear definition is the point.

It is entertaining, thought-provoking, and mischievously humorous. Anatomy of Survival is a sharp reminder that survival in the modern world often looks absurd — and that sometimes the best way to capture it is not with a play, or a dance, but a show.

Encounter Productions

Cast and creatives

Co-Directors: Frauke Requardt & Vivienne Franzmann

Choreography: Frauke Requardt and performers

Writer: Vivienne Franzmann

Performers: Bea Bidault, Kath Duggan and Solène Weinachter

Live Musician: Stefano Ancora

Designer: Hannah Clark

Lighting Designer: Lucy Hansom

Sound Design & Production: Chameleon drums&perc Studio

Video Design, camera and edit: Susanne Dietz

Production Manager: Rachel Bowen

Costume Supervisor: Annette Raudmets

Composer of “What She Wants”: Dave Price

Research Consultant: Frank Bock