This is not me
When we move to the right, something falls on us from the left, and when we work on one part of our life, we suddenly get entangled in something else even more challenging for our spirit. But who caused the mess? After all, I wasn’t even here, this isn’t my mess... Oh, what a shame.
The monodrama Mess / nepořádek, nebo snad úklid by the JAMU Physical Theatre Atelier, underneath genuinely funny content and excellent acting, hides the certain bitter aftertaste of helplessness and despair that modern man encounters at every turn. An attic room is suddenly transformed into the small, orphaned world of one man and the tragedy of confusion, which is extremely difficult to get rid of despite the undying efforts of the performer, the help or support of the audience, and the activity they themselves assume for its chaos in many moments. The viewer thus becomes a follower of the performer’s journey across the five stages of grief and final acceptance, but a journey that just raises more and more questions, despite a seemingly happy ending.
Is the performer struggling all the time with herself and her physical or mental disorder, or on the contrary, is she battling with the windmills that the world and its injustice have put in her way? All the more disheartening is the fact that the spectator subjectively feels sorry for the performer and would be extremely happy to assist her in cleaning up, but she herself refuses any possible help and only becomes more entangled in the whole tragic nature of her situation. The final, apparent order is, in fact, just a new version of organized chaos, with the performer also cleaning herself into one of the plastic boxes present on the set. The cathartic moment does not arrive, and it is questionable how far the loss of self and of order can extend.
However, once that is the way it goes in life, what evokes feelings of utmost despair in an individual, makes others laugh at the helplessness and be grateful that this mess and its consequences do not affect them. Whether we laugh at ourselves or the performer through our tears, however, remains an unanswered question.
