OBSERVER: QFWFQ
Gregory Nussen appeals to the work of Italian writer, Italo Calvino, in a production entitled QFWFQ.
The unpronounceable name is not a mistake but an acknowledgement of Calvino’s playful, post-modern style where reality and fantasy drift and boundaries are distorted. This is apparent in the performance which is almost surreal.
Calvino’s novel, If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller, blends unrelated manuscripts which Nussen does in his solo performance, breaking through the fourth wall and engaging with the audience.
What begins playfully with a toying of convention, however, morphs into an existential examination of Nussen’s sexual identity and his Jewish upbringing.
The work touches on how theatre should work to a philosophical examination of purpose to a questioning of cultural identity.
For Nussen, this is deeply personal and the barrier between character actor and individual is shattered – they are one in the same. The crisis Nussen was experiencing seemed real and not a play.
Just when the audience might have despaired for Nussen’s wellbeing, we return to the world of theatre.
The troubled character trying to produce a work is rediscovered. This epitomises Calvino’s fantastical perception of the world.
Fraught questions remain about our sanity, our political allegiances and social agendas at the end of the play and how we have constructed our own world and identity.
This work challenges one on multiple fronts and is astonishing theatre.
Review by David McLean