Following last year’s prank for Kiosk – which I wrote about extensively here as an interesting example of anti-theatre that tangentially performed various aspects of local viewing culture – D’Epog returns with the epic Handsfree, an adventure into a character who burned down their own house, and is now at a crossroads of negotiating how to deal with their material existence.
There is too much to write about in Handsfree. It really is a 2.5-hour, exhaustive monologue-installation with some projection interludes, probably just to giver Herculian performer Magdalena Straková a bit of a break. In the meantime, the text touches on a barrage of themes relevant to our contemporary moment: as we follow the performer’s journey through loss of material possessions and her dark, existential contemplation that follows this emptiness, it seems that there is no end to her exploration of exploitation, precarity, and social punishment, and the dark psychological effects of this on the individual. Handsfree is a work that delights in its endless spiral towards death and something like Agamben’s “Bare Life” that happens with the veneer of lies is removed, and the curtain is pulled back.
It does this with both a sense of pleasurable anarchy, and more-than-passing enthusiasm for theatre convention. The show opens with Straková atop a dystopian pile of trash (Set and Costumes: Dominik Styk), a la Winnie in Beckett’s Happy Days, sporting a grotesque mask, grim reaper cloak and black shopping bags. She begins to talk about her possessions, occasionally crescendoing into an absurd squak of “Mam, Mam”, like a nightmare or perpetual panic attack. The section ends with her pointing the finger and flailing, her voice distorted as the Doors Classic Light My Fire starts up, and the story of her accidentally setting fire to her house – on which Handsfree is based – begins.
Photo: Marek Jančúch
What follows is a rollicking ride through the protagonist Magda’s exposure
to the hell of living her contemporary materialist existence. We meet Magda’s
cat Mila via a dragged-around cat house on wheels (a la Brecht’s Mother Courage)
and hear about his needs, and then Straková reads a distorted fairy tale of the
Princess and the Pea, with a
re-animated version of the Disney tower collapsing in the background. She tells
a story of setting gamified challenges for herself, puts her material
belongings on a bus, and lay on a park bench with all her possessions, washing
her clothes in public. She speculates that maybe she could buy a car park and
set up her life there. Amusingly, the audience is led out of the Žilina's
Museum of Art to an actual car loaded with belongings, marvels at Straková
throwing clothes out of the first-floor window and onto the public square below
(subsequently interacting with passers-by) and watches a short part of the 90s TV
show Alf – before Straková picks up the projector and smashes it
on the floor.
Photo: Marek Jančúch
Handsfree seems an agile turn for D’Epog and director Lucia Repašská – a more explicit portrait of the failure of the human project under capitalism. It’s Lord of the Flies-style survivalist aesthetic mirrors a lot of the emotional contradictions of living under the constant pressures of exploitation. However, as this is drama, the psychological is mapped out onto the social through the dramaturgy (Matyáš Dlab): Handsfree speaks to a generalised condition, nimbly deploying the tools, languages and conventions of theatre in its assault on the social conditions of contemporary societies. It refuses the emotionality of contemporary storytelling formats, using its protagonist as a tool distanced from the audience – almost puppet-like – to engage in collective comprehension about our predicament.
Photo: Marek Jančúch
Amongst a sea of attention-demanding narratives, that’s refreshing. Handsfree is, in the end, not a cry for help – it’s a ruthless interrogation of social conditions, not so much holding a mirror to society, as holding a magnifying glass to it under bright sun, and watching it burn.
Photo: Marek Jančúch
Handsfree
Performer: Magdalena Straková
Concept, video and direction by Lucia Repašská
Dramaturgy and sound design by Matyáš Dlab
Costumes and set design: Dominik Styk
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