The Baroque

Oliver Nilsson

How could anyone not love the self-absorbed bumbling Baroque dandy, Syphilis von Hamstring; even as he spends his time lolling over his toilette staring at his reflection, fixing his makeup, choosing a wig or adjusting his frills. He certainly spends too much time on himself to ever succeed as a rake and roué of his libidinous era. He is Casanova who never gets to conjugal bliss. He is undoubtedly too inept to ever catch his namesake. But don’t judge. As the clowning dumbo, there is a little bit of us all in him. And we love him for it.

Undoubtedly, Syphilis is the full-disaster of his own making. The clown lets us see what the character fails to comprehend. He trips over everything he touches, undoing anything he undertakes. Despite his aristocratic pedigree, Syphilis inspires little awe. Yet, he demands, and we all fawn, hailing him as an Emperor with no clothes. Syphilis, ever hopeful, is hopeless in love. He is a naive romantic, always spurned. With childlike innocence, he wants us to love him—prompting us to proclaim, “I love Syphilis”. Syphilis is the social sophisticate who is unstuck as a fool. 

As the aristocratically ridiculous embodiment of the Baroque, Von Hamstring is the creation of Swedish comic Oliver Nilsson. Last year, as part of the award-winning troupe The Latebloomers, Nilsson performed in The Bakers (a sell-out return this year). In a set-up for another time, Nilsson was stranded in Adelaide last year, just as COVID was closing borders in all directions. It could have been worse; he could have made it home. Instead, Nilsson has been grounded in Adelaide for a year. But he does add a welcome breath of internationality to this year’s mainly Australian Fringe.

But it’s an ill wind... Nilsson and director Brittany Plummer whiled away some of their time in sunny, essentially COVID free, South Australia, developing and honing the character of Syphilis. Through mime, slapstick, and lots of funny faces, they have created a clumsy, lovable monster who is still evolving. As Frankenstein’s goofy monster, Syphilis took his first steps at Perth Fringe, before turning on Adelaide. 

Nilsson states at the outset that he wants to demonstrate two academics' perceptions on the nature of the Baroque era and style. He says, quoting them, that the Baroque has "an interest in performativity and theatricality; [has] a love of spectacle; [takes] a self-reflexive attitude towards methods of construction; [it has] a desire to play with the borders that separate illusion and reality." It’s unlikely that Syphilis could comprehend this post-post-modernistic sounding assessment. And how could the 21st century tell him what he's doing? He just does it. With the rich legacy of his era to draw on, Syphilis, is a Looney Tunes character caught-up in the eighteenth century, with a world of adventures in front of him.