UNE BOITE ANDALOUSE

Une Boîte Andalouse is one of Bootworks Theatre Co.'s signature 'Black Box' performances—an intensely stylised, miniature theatre experience that draws heavily on surrealist cinema.

The piece is a live theatrical reinterpretation of Un Chien Andalou, the famously shocking short film by Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí. Like its source, the show embraces dream logic, disturbing imagery, and abrupt, uncanny transitions, rather than conventional storytelling.

Presented inside Bootworks’ small, portable 'Black Box,' the performance is typically experienced by one audience member at a time, who peers through viewing holes into a tightly controlled visual world. Within this confined space, performers manipulate props, bodies, and perspective to create rapid, surreal sequences—echoing the strange juxtapositions of the original film. 

Iconic motifs associated with surrealism—such as the unsettling image of a razor cutting an eyeball, and the suggestion of bodily distortion—are reimagined through live physical theatre, illusion, and choreography. The result is a piece that feels like watching a silent, black-and-white film come to life in miniature, complete with a frantic, disorienting rhythm. 

As with other Bootworks 'Black Box' works, the experience operates on two levels:

• Inside: a private, dreamlike sequence of bizarre and often unsettling images

• Outside: a visible choreography of performers constructing the illusion in real time

Overall, Une Boîte Andalouse is less a narrative play than a sensory homage to surrealist art, transforming early avant-garde cinema into a brief, immersive, and slightly disturbing live encounter that plays with perception, scale, and the boundaries between film and theatre.

• Devised by Andy Roberts, James Peachey-Baker, Robert Daniels, Laura Bern, Daniel Kok, Sophia Melmoe, Ray Hunwicks, Vicky Kember, and Natalie McMonagle

• Produced by Emily Coleman 

The University of Chichester.