[Cabaret/Clown; United Kingdom]

Paulina Lenoir: Puella Eterna
The Yurt at the Courtyard of Curiosities at the Migration Museum, Tue 12 Mar

Paulina Lenoir was busy preening herself in front of a mirror as the audience filed in. We were able to take in her extensive wardrobe and props collection draped around the stage and allow the music to get us in the mood for Puella Eterna – the Eternal Girl. All of this was brought to an abrupt halt by a welcome to country. It was an intrusion into an artistic process, the building of relationship between audience and performer, that was already underway.

Fortunately, it didn’t seem to bother Lenoir. She moved seemlessly into her strangely bewitching style and announces that she has big plans for the universe tonight! An endless striptease has the audience laughing along. Then, in a madcap slightly deranged way we travel her whole life with her.

She introduces her baby-self as a puppet – “I did not choose to be born” and requires audience assistance to communicate and eat in some classic slapstick. She progresses to the toddler stage and manages to move around and talk with more of the audience on her knees in quite endearing fashion. She soon grows up – quite literally!! But it’s a rapid ride and menopause is soon upon her and is the occasion of some of the strangest dance moves you’ll ever see!

She has many ploys for engaging the audience in her brief life – many in the audience get real roses – and she regularly checks in with her timekeeper to make sure she has enough time to get to the end of her life and die before the show’s over!! But it doesn’t quite end there ….

Lenoir’s clown is disarmingly ingenuous, and likes to appear as if she’s a bit of a duffer but one has this sneaking feeling that behind that innocent smile she is having the last laugh. But you’re not sure why. Or even if it’s true!

But therein lies the joy and mystery of it all. On the outside you’ll be smiling and laughing throughout; on the inside you may be asking questions that have no answers!