Trompe l'Oeil at The Other Palace. Photos by Danny KaanUnfortunately, what starts as a piece of potentially clever word-play — Trompe (Trump) L’Œil — from the French to deceive the eye, never really leads to anything genuinely amusing or narratively substantial, instead it disappears up its own derrière by being slap-stick, overly frenetic and mixing sub-plots which resolutely refuse to align. The writing veers from silly to self-conscious rather than consistently clever or inventive.
Aside from one moderately accomplished romantic duet and half a dozen witty couplets, the piece struggles to find its oeuvre. Instead, the audience is bludgeoned into accepting it is watching a Faustian tale in which the egotistical arch villain (Don Trump = Don Giovanni) makes a pact with the devil. This ultimately leads to a sequence in which the largely talented company work their socks off (in a notoriously difficult performance situation space), to spoof Putin on the Ritz.
The enthusiasm and talents displayed by the performers can’t save the jarring material which goes off at poorly linked tangents with painting-related numbers involving apples and bowler hats (presumably an homage to Magritte’s Son of Man) and daft moments where anyone concluding that the political scene is veering towards the surreal, by uttering the word instantly melts and disfigures into a Dali-esque version of themselves. This presents a design/costume conundrum, which here is solved with the individual being wrapped in a bin liner by another cast member whose limbs then appear at incongruous right angles! Unimaginatively, the process is reversed by someone repeatedly apologising.
Overall, the Faustian/Surreal premise feels trite and contrived leaving the viewer wondering if a uni politics student got drunk one evening with an art history grad and concluded that the most daring and anti-establishment channel for their capabilities would be to write a musical. In point of fact the piece is credited to Henry Parkman Biggs with the production directed (with boundless energy) by Blair Anderson. Despite the lack of maturity and wit in the writing, there is a kernel of an acorn here which with a more consistent delivery style and something original to say, may (repeat may) offer hope — but it will require a far more disciplined narrative and focused premise to shake-off its student production vibe.
Those working their socks off under the lights include: Emer Dineen, Alex Wadham, Craig Bartley, Dominic Booth, Olivia Saunders, Sarah Louise Hughes, William Elijah Lewis and Yasmin Sharp, whilst Georgia Rawlins keeps a steady had on the tiller in guiding the musicians.
