Writers and Directors: Diana Feng, Tegan Verheul and Clarisse Zamba
There are pads of paper waiting on the chairs as we enter the Omnibus Theatre. As if this were a life drawing class, it’s suggested we can sketch the model on the stage before and during the show (though as soon as the stage lights go down this becomes impossible). The slightly laboured conceit lets the audience experience first-hand the dynamic between the artist and model, a dynamic that forms the dramatic basis for Artist/Muse, a one-act play that charts the course of a struggling relationship between a painter and his muse. The question of how works of art are influenced by the stories and relationships that lie behind their creation is a fascinating one, however, tonight we’re given a story we’ve all heard before that adds little illumination.
Olivia, played with great exuberance by Caterina Grosoli, is a serial artist’s muse. When we meet her, she is escaping a brash, abusive American artist who has taken on a new younger model. She escapes into the arms of the sensitive Paul, played tenderly by Sushant Shekhar, who is also an artist and keen to take her on as his new muse.
As they quickly fall in love, we witness Olivia as a woman who happily takes on the role of muse, enlivening the creative spark in men by letting them have her fully rather than just look at her and paint her. She is wild, impulsive, talkative, in many ways a feminine stereotype, and she channels her feminine powers in a way similar to a prostitute, as is referenced throughout. When she poses for an artist it is a way of her giving her body to a man. And when she poses for another man it has the sense of betrayal similar to sexual infidelity.
The idea of a consensual, empowering romanticisation of the male gaze is an intriguing theme, but the story is predictable and plays out with very little modern insight. It’s reminiscent of a Woody Allen film – one of the unfunny ones. And if the self-reflexivity hinted at in the beginning was expanded upon, this needn’t have been a bad thing.
Reviewed on 19 July 2023 and then at Edinburgh Fringe
