It’s Wednesday night, 8:01pm and you are at the opening night of ‘Desire Caught by the Tail,’ the play by Spanish artist Pablo Picasso being put on as the Drama department’s first full-length production in Turner Studio Theatre.
You sit down, the film (wait…what?) starts and two images in, there is already a Nazi flag being hoisted into the air on screen and you’re thinking, “What the hell is this all about…?”
Well, it does not get any clearer from there, friends. So just sit back and let your eyes and ears soak up this visual feast because sometimes, there is nothing else you can do…but make the soup.
Written in three days during the winter of 1941 when the Germans were occupying France, Picasso and his artistic cohorts found themselves in Paris in a very uncomfortable time. Yet they continued following their callings nonetheless. This tale does not particularly care about the conventions of linear storytelling, so it is best to abandon those expectations at the door.
The sets and costumes are presented in a way that is extremely true to the nature of Picasso’s cubist idiosyncrasies and gives the audience a view of the starving artist lifestyle from inside his head. This colourful and energetic live performance is juxtaposed with the black and white filmed reading set ‘in reality,’ providing the actors on stage with the sound for their lines, leaving them the space to focus nearly entirely on body work, projection of movement and silent insinuation. The result is both visually and orally pleasing.
Although the banana-eating monkey silhouettes mechanically moving against oval windows of hellish red light may have been scary for any children who were in the audience, they garnered many a laugh from the audience present opening night.
Another imperative piece of designing in the play was the masks which obscure the characters faces, making it seem almost like they are puppets onstage controlled by the voices of their characters. This is all until you catch a glimpse of flesh or mouth from beneath the opening, gaping in pain or awe and then you realize there are also people trapped within these costumes.
The nude suit worn by the actress playing ‘Tart’ for many scenes may have been another confusing object for small children, but at least no one will be able to complain about the ‘Tart’ being an airbrushed absurdity as a female icon. She’s definitely got the buttocks and ‘perfect breasts’. The suit brings an intriguing new view to the female form – lopsided breasts and buttocks rendered impossibly beautiful by the grace and cunning of the actresses’ feline and energetic movements about the stage, even in the portrayal of more intimate scenes.
The energy of the actors is really something that is felt throughout the performance. It is easy enough to forget that for nearly an hour, not a word is actually spoken on stage.
The actors multiply the strength of their characters by being able to invest all their energy into movement within the space whilst on stage and all the energy into the voice when on film. The roles in the play are double-cast, with on-stage and on-film exchanging shows. The characters represented come across as more surreal than life, not only because of the setting in which they appear – but because behind each character is the strength and innovation of two actors.
Working in tandem, the actors transform a delirious dreamscape of debauchery with a farfetched text that acts more like an oral paintbrush, daubing images over the eyelids into something that can be understood. By the end of the play, it is even familiar. Like a dream you have only just remembered.
It is best not to approach this piece with any expectations. How would you prepare for a dream before you fall asleep? Rather, the audience will benefit more perhaps from reading brief bios of Picasso and his friends on Wikipedia, and Googling a few paintings.
This piece is meant to distract, pervert and compliment reality, so the best advice would probably be to just take it for what it is… a work of art.
