David Strassman: Duality

    The art of ventriloquism, like the A-team, began to disappear from TV screens sometime in the 1980s.  There are two reasons for this.  One, specific to the former, is the widespread improvement in picture quality and camera work, which made the previously imperceptible movements of the ventriloquist’s lips seem suddenly as undeniable as a broken pelvis.  The other, common to both, is that the premise had become tired, predictable and rather naff.

David Strassman ‘does not hang out with ventriloquists’, so unfashionable has his trade become.  This self-awareness is central to Duality, an enthralling production that analyses the relationship between puppet and puppeteer, conscious and subconscious, ventriloquist and ventriloquism.  Using original animatronics and a dark, thought provoking script, the American’s physical and psychological innovations allow him to take his art into the realms of theatre, and far beyond its usual resting place, as he himself puts it, ‘one step above a juggler’.

  In the waiting room of a psychiatrist’s office, Strassman and his construction – a gloomy adolescent named Chuck – weave their way through a tight and fast paced dialogue, touching on a whole range of issues, but never descending into cod-psychology such is the carefully crafted nature of the writing.  Strassman builds ever more elaborate and irritating towers of intellectual argument as he tries to justify his thoughts and actions which, as they approach collapse, are brought crashing down by Chuck’s juvenile pragmatism.  Lines such as ‘Why am I not black?’ provide frequent comic relief, and seem strangely valid given the context that Strassman manages to create.

Those of us who felt initial apathy are wrong footed into true amazement as man slowly loses control of his creation and metaphysical madness ensues. When he indulges in what should be an incredibly annoying post-modern twist at the end, we feel that he has earned it. David Strassman, in 60 head bending minutes, miraculously resurrects the gimmick-riddled corpse of his art form in front of your very eyes. Astonishing.

Reviewed by Davie Heaton 30/08/2010

David Strassman: Duality
Pleasance Courtyard
19:00, until August 30th