Aurora
Nova, Edinburgh
August, 2006
****
It's not unusual to see a show which
invests an ordinary activity with significance simply by putting it
before an audience, but I didn't expect to see it done with
hairdressing. Before Raymond Keane co-founded the Irish clowning
theatre company Barabbas in the 1980s he was the country's hottest
maverick haircutter, turning down an offer to become U2's personal
stylist (though he admits, "I never saw The Edge's hair"). This show
includes some visual/physical set pieces and a handful of
autobiographical anecdotes, but its core is simply the spectacle of
watching Keane cut an audience member's hair. If you have ever thought
of hairdressing as a sensual experience, this will confirm it: at the
performance I saw, he repeatedly ran his fingers through
spectator-turned-client Athena's hair, as if trying to divine from its
strands what the ideal shape would be. And he found it: Keane does not
impose styles, he lets the client and their hair define his terms. He
also chats with them and with the rest of the audience, creating an
intimacy which is finally consummated when the new cut is shown in the
mirror, on this occasion unostentatious yet beautiful. Barabbas has
long been an inventive company, but this show – as it were – pares
matters back to the roots and yet remains compelling.