Saturday, September 14, 2019

Pretty Feelings review: A magnificent surreal comedy about the art of love

The goddess Venus is the director of a match-making agency in this ebullient production. 


Kevin Kavanagh Gallery, Dublin Fringe Festival
★ ★ ★ ★ ★

“Language isn’t always clear. That’s why we’re surrounded by masterpieces,” says Venus. The Roman goddess is the director of a matchmaking agency in Pretty Feelings, the magnificent surreal comedy by Isadora Epstein, Conor Lumsden, Ruan Van Vliet and Kathy Tynan. On a quiet side street, this office resembles more an art gallery, a place to stir emotion. Sometimes romance just needs the right setting.

Fringe, seriously, how you have changed. At the beginning of the decade, it was easy to point to the laboratories that gave us excellent art - the avant-garde boot camp of youth theatre, or the theory-drenched common room of a theatre studies class. But a new wave of creators with visual art backgrounds has arrived, giving us memorable highlights such as Aoibheann Greenan’s underground opera The Perfect Wagner Rite, and the experimental cabaret performer Xnthony. Wild and profound, they make a lot of theatre on the Fringe look overly cerebral. 

Venus wants to find romance for us all. Played by a high-energy Isadora Epstein, in a red velvet jumpsuit, she is wide-eyed with wonder and slightly nervous. Imagine a sales pitch delivered by Liza Minnelli, punctuated by jazzy gestures. “Welcome to Pretty Feelings Match-making Agency,” she says, her hand extending to the horizon. 

When Epstein appeared in her past play Flemish Proverbs, co-created with Moira Brady Averill (who passed away in 2016), it was difficult to see through its dizzying randomness. Its only intention seemed to be to put shape on the chaos and violence of a Pieter Bruegel painting. Her episodic script for Pretty Feelings is much clearer. Its plot isn’t based on play-logic but painting-logic: it is an allegory.

Instead of matching us with human suitors, Venus options us which season to fall in love in. Guided by Kathy Tynan’s vibrant paintings of Dublin, we journey through each period of the year - a spring pink with cherry blossom, an attractive park view in autumn. Venus herself revisits famous appearances. She surfs a scallop shell, and falls into bed with Adonis, in this romp through the art of love. 

But the seasonal cycle also outlines the stages in the goddess’s life. In bitter winter she pines down the phone, singing “What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?” to a someone unknown. She reflects on giving birth to unloving children, on a heated and passionate love affair, and finally finding autumn-like consolation in the face of loss. “Love and death are kind of the same thing,” says one of the Fates from beyond, whose name is Moira. 

Surprises are to be found everywhere in this ebullient production, directed by Kristina Yee and Liadain Kaminska. Supporting players appear with flourish - Conor Lumsden’s drum-playing Zephyrus is permanently windswept, while Cupid, played by Conor Lumsden, is a roller-skating rock-star. Venus says she wants “to open the art up,” and Epstein is reimagining art history as something effervescent. 

That may sound reverential and serious, but the play stays true to its surreal and odd tone, in a coda that re-positions Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus. We often don’t see art from such an uplifting new angle. 


Runs until Sep 15th.

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