With cats swinging from cleverly woven prose and properly placed punctuation, “Cirque du Chat” is not for those allergic to clever language or “purrfect” sentences.
The show is this year’s annual Gram-O-Rama production, with skits written and performed by students in Marianne Gingher’s stylistics class.
Gingher, a UNC English professor, said she has been teaching the nontraditional class since 2001.
“Daphne Athas founded the idea that grammar could be performable,” Gingher said, adding that she arrived at the University decades after Athas began the show.
Gingher was a graduate student in creative writing when she first saw the show. She began co-teaching the course the following year.
“I was blown away,” she said. “I didn’t know what I was seeing or hearing … The sound and nonsense (of language) kind of revives you.”
This year’s show is wild and provocative, and all of the students are rock-solid writers, Gingher said.
“The title of the show exhibits its wordplay aspect,” she said. “It can be a circus of chat or circus of cats, if translated from French.”
Senior William Heathcote, one of Gingher’s students, said he saw the show last fall and decided he had to take the course.