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drinks Monday 1 September 08 Edinburgh Reunion in London
Topping And Butch Hit Leicester Square 26-27 September 08
Desire Caught By The Tail
(play by Pablo Picasso)
Verdict: Writes Better Than He Paints.
London - Jan/Feb 03
Bonk-crazy Pablo Picasso fathered children well into his eighties, shagged (according to the memoires of his mistresses) like a steam-hammer, and painted his lovers with 3 heads.
One model-turned-lover recalled the moment she first realised it wasn't a heavy-impasto paint-brush Picasso was packing: 'Pablo stood behind me, one of my breasts in each hand, as if comparing two melons at a market'. Blimey, so that's how the Continentals buy canteloupes. Don't try this one in Waitrose.
OK, so Picasso missed a trick or two as a painter. OK, so his fruit methodology was unsound (everyone else picks them up one at a time and tries to press the end in) (don't they?). But all through his life, the sex-mad Spaniard concealed a formidable talent: Pablo, the closet playwright.
Director Liana Potila stumbled on the gem of Picasso's Desire Caught By The Tail (written 14 January 1941 in Paris), and here she selects a short scene from the full-length work. It's a sharp sensual delight featuring two gifted actors: Viktoria Knoblauh, playing Thin Anxiety; and Lindsay Gear, as Fat Anxiety. There's a moody abstract sound-track by Liana Potila with Oskari Moilanen.
Thin and Fat Anxiety are two highly odd girls. They're in short green dresses, with marionette's white face make-up, and hair each in two pig-tails at alarming angles, giving the effect of antennae.
They're hungry, and gobble from a circular tyre prop that's initially a plate. Thin can slip effortlessly through it, it drops over her body without obstruction. Fat attaches a string to it and tugs Thin behind her. She finds an imaginary cord down Thin's mouth, and pulls it out, distorting poor Thin's face alarmingly.
Fat finds a couple of invisible handlebars on the sides of Thin's head, and steers her across the stage, to an atmospherically machine-like sound-track.
They're tucking into food, but is that tyre that Fat's sticking her head and tongue into to fill her stomach, still representing a plate? Or is it, worryingly, a lavatory seat?
Desire Caught By The Tail uses dialogue (abstract, but come on, what did you expect from Picasso?), a glorious sound-score, and dance moves to create a fabulous explosion of senses. Most of all it uses the talents of two uniquely gifted performers.
As Fat Anxiety, Lindsay Gear shows a dazzling range of facial and bodily expressions of greed and sensual voracity. Fat, in Gear's fine portrayal, is rapacious in the extent of her physical and mental appetites. She's a personification of consumption - with a dash of cruelty, and vulnerability.
Viktoria Knoblauh's Thin Anxiety is a magical creation. Part puppet, robot, abstracted human, and real breathing woman - a range Knoblauh explores and applies with effortless ease - her Thin's a sensual masterpiece. Her eyes are almost black on white, and with their smallest movement she conjures a mountain of emotion - and impishness.
Director Liana Potila creates here a remarkable rendering of a fine piece of dramatic writing. In her hands it emerges as light, powerful, charismatic, gentle - and funny.
Credits: Performers (alpha order) - Lindsay Gear (Fat Anxiety) and Viktoria Knoblauh (Thin Anxiety). Director Costume / Mask / Sound Score - Liana Potila. Sound Engineer - Oskari Moilanen. Company ETAP.
END
John Park
reviewed 15 January 03 / Mutiny At The Bargehouse
and 20 February 03 / Theatre In The Pound / Cockpit Theatre
(c) Fringe Report 2003
Fringe Report (c) Fringe Report 2002-2008
