The Maestro & the Mosquita
Space Upstairs, Project Arts Centre, Dublin
★★★★☆
What’s eating Louis Lovett? The answer, in The Maestro & the Mosquita, the latest production from Theatre Lovett, a company known for physical, inventive pieces that explore the darker shades of imagination and play, is a relentless, bloodthirsty beastie.
In this one-man show Lovett plays the Maestro, a lonely conductor creaking with age and regret, who invites us to reflect with him on his journey from youthful innocence through dizzying fame to eventual solitude. As he reminisces, a mosquita – a female, and so biting, mosquito – becomes more than just a pest as it buzzes around him, standing in for the torment of artistic inspiration and the persistence of love.
It’s a lot to ask of a little insect, and more to ask of Lovett, who deftly meets the challenge in bringing to life the Maestro, the Mosquita and everything in between through a bravura performance of mime and vocal gesture. (The Maestro speaks in a percussive non-language that sounds like garbled Danish by way of west Kerry, the Mosquita in a tremulous squeal.)
A beautiful, evocative score by Stephen Warbeck (who also directs with Muireann Ahern) and illuminating lighting design by Sarah Jane Shiels do just as much as Lovett to conjure the faded grandeur of a Viennese opera house and underline the emotional resonance of the Maestro’s journey.
By the time the Mosquita has taught the Maestro about the importance of love, we get the sense that it’s a lesson learned too late. Carmel Winters’s artful script adds real sadness to the slapstick, even as the audience joins the Maestro in song.
Mosquitas are elusive. At times, so is the narrative of this play, lost in broad comedy and occasionally overwrought scenes. Unlike the buzzy bug, however, you never want to swat The Maestro & the Mosquita away.
Continues at Project Arts Centre, as part of Dublin Fringe Festival, until Sunday, September 15th
