Photo courtesy of Fraudulent Productions.What is dada? It’s founders describe it as “the world soul”, lily-milk soap, a path to eternal bliss, or nothing at all. An artistic movement born in Zurich in the twilight of World War I, Dadaism was framed as a rejection of bourgeois order and logic, an embrace of chaos that would later give way to Surrealism. In DADA Returns!, the Fraudulent Production company attempts to give us a taste of this inscrutable art form.
DADA Returns! is actually a performance of a play called Handkerchief of the Clouds, penned in 1924 by Tristan Tzara, one of the fathers of Dadaism. Told in 15 brief acts, the play centers around a tortured love triangle. Madame is married to The Banker but loves The Poet. Meanwhile, The Banker loves money (natch), and The Poet loves no one. (Drama!) The cast also features three Commentators who play incidental characters and provide analysis of the unfolding storyline between acts.
Tzara’s work is rife with playful language and fanciful metaphors, from the mythical “Peak of Sentimental Consolidation” to the very title of the play itself. The actors attack the prose with aplomb and melodrama, with varying degrees of success and believability. For reasons that may not be altogether clear to the audience, the play also slips into several scenes from Hamlet, if Hamlet were a character in The Godfather.
If you’ve ever been to Capital Fringe, you know that the experimental is not always the most successful. Handkerchief of Clouds was unprecedented for it’s time, but the plot can be difficult to follow and ping-ponging between the characters and the commentators gives the work a disjointed feel. Still, the chaos and confusion are nothing if not pure dada. Ultimately, DADA Returns! raises questions about the line between theater and reality, truth and lies—in its own whimsical, nonsensical way.
DADA Returns! (20th Anniversary Edition)
Remaining performances:
Friday, July 20 at 6 p.m.
Wednesday, July 25 at 8 p.m.
Saturday, July 28 at 4 p.m.
Sunday, July 29 at 12 p.m.
At the GALA Hispanic Theatre, 3333 14th Street NW, second floor.
