In the post-Karen age we are increasingly witnesses to the bat-shit meltdowns and shrieked obscenities of people far beyond our locale. Each person with a smartphone is free to record and air people behaving badly, or alternatively, give their two cents on whatever public spat they come across. But where do these people come from? Why do they snap the way they do? Choreographer Frauke Requardt and playwright Vivienne Franzmann’s canny work of dance theatre “Anatomy of Survival,” commissioned and co-produced by the Place and the Royal Court, gives a platform to these petulant ones.

The work starts with an infomercial of sorts. A soft-spoken lady on screen informs us of our primal mammalian responses to danger and discomfort: fight, flight, and freeze. Like it or not, our bodies have not yet adapted past our hunter-gatherer response system to threat. For some, we learn, the bandwidth of tolerance is narrower than others, leading to dysregulation and potential outbursts. Got it? Good. 

The action on stage begins with a sensitivity training demonstration. Actress Kath Duggan prompts dancers Bea Bidault and Solène Weinachter to enact a scene in a café: Woman A asks what flavours of coffee they have, Woman B responds ‘coffee’, Woman A takes offence and things begin to descend into a full on tirade from the affronted customer. What we see next are the testimonies of the twenty or so witnesses to this crime of composure, played out by the three ladies to the meter of percussionist Stefano Ancora’s drum kit.