Don Juan

Overview

Wellington's A Slightly Isolated Dog (ASID) are returning to Auckland for a limited season of their critically acclaimed adaption of Molière's Don Juan. Opting this time around for the more intimate confines of Q Theatre's Vault, the theatrical quintet are here, besides hoping to make you laugh till you cry, in an effort to raise funds for their upcoming debut at Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

But Don Juan, you ask? A supremely overdetermined figure, Juan is a walking, or more accurately, f**king cliché. Artifice and hypocrisy embodied. His story, as retold by Molière, is one replete with exoticism, barely concealed homoeroticism and a flagrant, at times misogynistic, heterosexuality.

Picking up where Molière left off, ASID promise to zoom in on these troublesome characteristics. With self-reflexive glee, they'll poke fun at just how silly we humans can be; especially when we (think) we're in love. Should you venture along, you'll be welcomed by the troupe sporting, amongst other accoutrements, outrageously fake French accents. This, a synecdoche for the entire piece, and its playful interrogation of originality and sexuality. Though not exactly political, still less, 'radical', ASID's rendering of Don Juan will delight those who enjoy (laughing at) the plethoric contradictions of the hetero-romance script.