Great Artists Steal

Is it really possible to have a new idea any more? International company Theatraverse would suggest not. Their surreal fable of invention questions any claims to originality, instead implying that we are all thieves to a greater or lesser extent.

The Man and The Woman (it would appear that names have not yet been invented) hole themselves up in their workshop with all the inventions they lay claim to: the first weapon, the first item of clothing, the first rope. Over the course of the show they are visited by The Young Man, the latest in a series of youthful inventors to come to stay. The ingenious guest dreams up sliced bread and laboriously draws and redraws the wheel (geddit?), but his inventions are too good to remain his own for long.

Seamus Collins’ play tells this odd little story within a baffling bilingual structure. The Man and The Woman speak a strange, broken version of English—imagine Yoda in white face paint—while The Young Man speaks almost exclusively in French. It is straining laboriously towards a linguistic metaphor for the ways in which we constantly borrow and repurpose, but never quite grasps it.  

Theatraverse may have sticky fingers, but sadly they are not great artists. Their own second-hand creation is both bewildering and boring, shedding little light on the great cycle of reappropriation that has propelled humankind forward for centuries. If all invention is theft, then perhaps Theatraverse should have borrowed their inspiration from a more compelling source.