Edinburgh Fringe 2021
Mustard by Eva O’Connor
Fishamble: the new play company in association with Sunday's Child
Genre: Dark Comedy, Devised, One Person Show
Venue: SummerHall
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
A darkly comic play about heartbreak, madness, and how condiments are the ultimate coping mechanism. When the man of her dreams, a professional cyclist, leaves E, she plummets into a black hole of heartbreak at the speed of a doped-up team on the Tour de France.
Review
Funny, insightful and commanding, Eva O’Connor deftly tells a familiar story of addictive sex and love and the aftermath. Using a raconteur’s skill with a poetic lilt, we are swept up by the performance into the journey of a lonely Irish art-girl in London who stumbles into an obsessive relationship. Simply staged with theatrical props including a clothesline that unravels from her body and a bucket of water and wet towels; the staging is appropriately sparse, as the real focus of the performance is the language and the lived-experience of the story.
This is a one-woman bravura performance using mustard (literally) as a physical manifestation of self-destruction via an English import. Gleefully exploring themes of sex, insecurity, and revenge through a darkly comic lens , the performance engages us through to its cathartic conclusion where “the soul is still inside, screaming, but intact.” Highly recommended for both the performance and the script– with chin up and articulated pain and self-mockery, Eva O’ Connor weaves a compelling tale.