Dublin Fringe Festival 2017: Everything Not Saved
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Don’t Forget To Remember To Forget
If you forgot to remember to forget what it was you didn't want to remember in the first place, don't worry about it: you won't remember it anyway. Not really. For when it comes to memory the photos are wrong. So are all the videos. As are the words, the narratives, the facts and, of course, history. Biggest thing that's wrong is your brain. That's so far wrong that if you really want to forget then the best thing you can do is remember. For the act of remembering is actually an act of forgetting. Because you will only remember what you think you remember in terms of the questions which frame, exclude, or gave perspective to the event you want, or don’t want, to remember. Still with us? If such selective, philosophical sleight of hand is your idea of a good time, you're going to love MALAPROP’s “Everything Not Saved.” If you like a little less pretention, or a little more philosophical substance to your discourses on memory, you might have some problems with it. Either way, come for the philosophy lecture, stay for the humour. For “Everything Not Saved” delivers some thoroughly good laughs courtesy of some top class comic performances.
Indeed so much humour abounds in “Everything Not Saved” you might be tempted to think it’s all just a playful joke. But humour is just a mechanism to sweeten the philosophical pill. For inside three often hilariously funny sketches sit three hefty philosophical monologues, defined as much by what they omit as by what they wedge into place. An actress and a filmmaker recording an excerpt from a Princess Elizabeth speech in 1947, a forensic actor helping train interrogators, and three wannabe Rasputins showing us the various ways we think he died, are all delightfully funny in places, with the last being particularly enjoyable. Yet laughs give way to lectures as the impact of short-term memory, long term memory, no memory, lost memories, reclaimed memories, imagined memories all blend into one, to be monologued upon at length. Peter Corboy, Breffni Holahan and Maeve O’Mahony handle the often onerous material with a deft touch, showing excellent chemistry and exquisite comic timing throughout.
Devised by the company with Dylan Coburn Gray, and directed by Claire O’Reilly, “Everything Not Saved” feels like a lesson in Baudrillard 101, where history is dead and art is a plastic simulation in the deconstructed halls of hipster heaven. Certainly there are some interesting points, and lashing of laughs, but are you likely to remember “Everything Not Saved” in five weeks time? Probably not. But MALAPROP probably wouldn’t have it any other way. So laugh large, sip your cucumber cocktail, listen to Boney M, and make it a night to remember.
“Everything Not Saved” by MALAPROP runs at The Project Arts Centre as part of The Dublin Fringe Festival 2017 until September 16th
For more information visit Dublin Fringe Festival 2017 or Project Arts Centre
