Pasta and Guvi against time

A clownesque exploration of the future and our desire to know what lies ahead

Pasta and Guvi Against Time follows two clown characters confronting questions of time, the future and the human desire to know what comes next.

As Pasta and Guvi already existed as established clown personas before the production was developed, the costumes grew directly from their individual personalities and histories. Developed in close collaboration with the performers, they build on the characters’ existing visual identities rather than reinventing them for the production.

The stage was conceived as an open playground for performance and improvisation rather than as a representation of a specific place. Standard stage platforms create different levels that only become defined through the performers’ actions, transforming into a bed, a hiding place, a pavement edge or whatever a particular moment requires. Three black cubes extend this principle further, shifting between seats, columns, a time machine, a telephone box and other imagined objects. Simple chalk drawings provide occasional visual cues while leaving their interpretation deliberately open.

This flexibility allows the same abstract environment to respond to the improvised sections of the performance, which can develop differently with every show. Rather than prescribing how the space should be used, the design provides a framework from which new places and objects can continuously emerge through play.