Galway International Arts Festival 2025: Sabotage

Chris O'Rourke
Jul 19
3 min read

Updated: Jul 20

Sabotage by No FitState. Image by Mary Wycherley

****

I have to confess to never seeing the allure in running away to join a circus. The romance, yes; but think about the reality. Also, classic circus is hard to find these days. The type that once toured like nomads with travelling zoos before animal rights activists rightly put paid to animal mistreatment. After which circus aspired to Vegas residencies for aerial acts. But you can only twirl on a rope so many times and still look interesting. Classic circus, that’s a different experience altogether. Classic circus, like NoFitState, is wild, sexy, dangerous and fun, even without the animals. NoFitState's current production, Sabotage, running as part of Galway International Arts Festival, reminding you of the enduring appeal of what's best in circus.

Directed by Firenza Guidi, Sabotage ticks all the classic circus boxes. Firstly, it must always take place in a big top on possible wasteland on the outskirts of town. Check. On entrance it must sell cardboard popcorn sweetened to within an inch of its death. Check. There must be a roguish camaraderie of clowns, acrobats, jugglers and high wire acts. Check. A strong man, trapeze artist, tightrope walker, along with bearded and tattooed ladies. Or at least ladies sporting tattoos and bearded people who look like ladies with beards. Check. These must also serve as roadies and carnies, resembling extras from American Horror Story suggesting they could easily kill you and hide your body where no one would ever find it. Check. They must also double up as musicians, dancers, man the munchies stand and do anything else required. Check. See what I mean about the reality?

*Sabotage by NoFitState. Image by Mark J. Robson*

A visual palate part Jean-Pierre Jeune and Marc Caro, Sabotage's whirling dervish of visual joy captivates instantly. There’s no theme as such, no narrative to speak of, though some visual ideas recur. Riot shields and military uniforms speak to an authoritarianism occasionally subverted; Rhi Matthews’s costumes a vital component in Sabotage's success as a stunning visual spectacle. Its successive acts of increasing physical complexity delightfully informed by David Murray's compositions played live. An aerial artist spinning by her hair, a tightrope walker doing impossible flips, a hula hoop routine of split second precison, a juggler hidden under the floorboards, manipulated rope work that defies gravity, along with endless climbing of steel beams at breakneck speed and much, much more. Acts transitioned between with plenty of humorous clowning. Acts that, were this a cinema, you’d swear were made using CGI.

What distinguishes good circus from great circus is not the physical acts themselves but their artistry. NoFitState prove masters of both. Yet most impressive is the tangible camaraderie between its impossible community of magnificent misfits. It’s not enough to have an act, to also sing, dance and play an instrument, all crucial requirements in Sabotage. Nor is it about being rigorous and exacting in pushing at what’s physically possible, again also crucial. Rather it's about having the humility to be centre stage one minute and a stage hand the next. To be exactly where you’re needed, when you’re needed, doing exactly what’s needed whilst relying on others to do the same for you. It’s about pulling your weight, their weight, and any other weight that needs to be pulled, lifted, carried or moved. It’s about family forged nightly in a frenetic cauldron of life threatening routines to bring joy and surprise so as to entertain others. As Sabotage comes to a hurried close, with less of a big finish than you might have hoped for, you quickly forget the guy with the big head half blocking your view, or the guy behind commenting on everything. The night best captured in the bright eyes of the young girl with a white hair ribbon sat next to you. Applauding rapturously, her heart racing with excitement. Perhaps dreaming of when she, too, might run away and join a circus. Do impossible things with remarkable people. On the exhilarating evidence that is Sabotage, who can blame her? Personally, I'll stay where I am with my popcorn.