Rachel Mars: The Way You Tell Them

Standing outside the venue after the performance had finished, the audience were left scratching their heads. Originally billed as Theatre/Comedy, ‘The Way You Tell Them’ doesn’t sit easily in either of these catagories. Perhaps ‘Autobiographical Humourist Performance Art’ would be better? Semantical debates about genre aside, Rachel Mars, performing solo, sews a very loose thread. Her attempts to understand how we use humour and her compulsion to be funny was told through a mélange of music, video, sounds, physical theatre and, of course, jokes. Visually striking, witty with some truly poignant moments, it seemed a little lost on the audience who often didn’t laugh or laughed at the wrong moments. This was not entirely their fault but perhaps the nature of the beast of experimental theatre.

The Basement, 11 May 2013

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