What position does it put the audience in when you've barely sat down and the performer announces that you can leave at any time during the show, but that if you do so, you will certainly hurt her feelings? It feels rather like accepting a lift with someone who implies that they can't drive, but also makes it clear that getting out would be unforgivably rude. So, like everyone else, I stayed put during this solo piece from Italian performance artist Patrizia Paolini.
Sadly, there is not much to stay for. Paolini has a scar on her chin, and eventually we discover how she got it. But she is far more interested in the scar as metaphor and as a physical manifestation of emotional trauma, so she goes to the pub and asks some of the men there about their own scars and records their responses on film.
It's a good idea, but it remains an idea that doesn't translate into performance. There is much telling, but little showing. It's also like spending time with someone who on occasion can be quite engaging but who never settles to anything; Paolini's meandering style is not so much intriguing as soporific.
While she scratched her head, she mostly left me scratching mine about how a show as ill-formed as this one made it into the BAC programme.
