Review: Is this too framed?

My original plan for Tuesday night was to have a pleasant evening with friends seeing “The Masque of the Red Death.” About an hour before its scheduled start time I found out that it had been inexplicably cancelled. A grolsch at the Mudclub helped ease my disappointment a little. And I reflected that I was lucky that I had earlier been coerced into seeing the directed reading of “Is this too Framed?” which helped quench my thirst for theatre. I got in for free because I said I would write a review about it, so here I am.

‘Picasso, Escher and Dali walk into a bar….’

In the beginning, there was confusion. There were a myriad of characters that appeared to range from abstract objects to famous historical artists. These characters also tended to have fast jocular interchanges and/or emotional tantrums. The idea of a play reading as a performance was also a little foreign to me I must admit. Yet as time ‘dripped’ and water ‘ticked’ by the complex themes of the play unfolded before the audience and the story came to life.

Very near to the start, the curator of an art show is brusquely made to exit the premises, as ‘art is for art’ and he has been told that everything has been taken care of. This creates a grounding for the play as something that defies the constraints of ‘curating’ or ‘structure,’ and acknowledges that art has a mind of its own; that a story doesn’t belong to the creator, but to itself (a concept in which I have a strong belief).

“Is this too framed?” is set in the three rooms of an art exhibition/show, and the open bar (one thinks there needs to be some ‘common ground’). The rooms are soon filled with the rich dialogue of the characters including; Picasso’s seemingly simultaneous hate and love for women, the philosophical musings of Escher, and the mad mutterings of Dali. Not to mention the character who was actually a giant moustache.

Something the play made me increasingly (and embarrassingly) aware of is how little I know about art history. References to specific paintings and the wives/lovers of painters made a small “whoosh” sound as they passed over my head. However there were parts that even the uneducated groundlings of the audience could comprehend.

An interlude involving three stair monitors was a fun little piece which lay bare the woes and fantasies of those who guard the stairs of arts events, but never go inside. The piece was taken from a 24 hour play event in 2010. This was one of many such short plays by Tilly Lunken that were incorporated into “Is this too framed?” to create the entertaining conglomerate that exists today.

With just the right amount of seriousness and hilarity, (and occasional divergence from linearity), “Is this too framed?” captures the intense and whimsical nature of art itself, and plops it into the one performance. Writer, Tilly Lunken, Director, Sharon Flynn, Designer/Operator, David Haidon and really the entirety of the talented cast have done a superb job over such a short space of time and I’m looking forward to the performances yet to come.

‘Believe as if there is no one to care, weep as if there is no one to hear, eat as if there is no one to share.’