Making its debut at THEATREclub’s third annual festival The Theatre Machine Turns You On: Vol. 3 at the Project Arts Centre last week, Writer/Performer/Salesman (A New Play About Retail) by Oisín McKenna is a rhythmic, one man play-slash-poem. Grabbing at the negativity and self doubt that nestles deep within the would-be artists mind if only he could get it together to learn what exactly postmodernism is, so that when the artistic, intellectual types ask what he does, he can have an artistic intellectual answer.
Not only is Writer/Performer/Salesman (A New Play About Retail) injected with witty punches and a seamless poetic rhythm, but its subject matter is almost painfully relatable for the majority of people who are still waiting for their so called creative and artistic “big break”. The reality of it is, the big break we are waiting for will not come in the form of public recognition, as McKenna so boldly highlights, the battle is much more of an internal one. Before a person can even set public recognition in their sights, before acceptance of ones own work and self recognition comes into play, one most first admit to themselves that they are in fact an artist or a performer and not just a salesman.
Torn between the life being lived by this person claiming to be him and the life as an artist he has envisioned for himself, McKenna spells out the struggle of every potential artist. The mundane necessity of a job in retail, the not-so-much-fake-as-programmed smile and small talk. The manager who for some reason believes that the sales targets and organization of products are as important to you as they are to her. Don’t they know this is only a temporary fix and beneath the name badge burns a creative intellect? Retail may be their life calling but it is most certainly not yours. Even if thus far your only creative outlet has been a “few lines of poetry scribbled on the Nitelink”. This limited means of self-expression and contribution to wider society could be a result of the full time hours worked. The full time hours in a job where it actually is important what price tag is fixed to what product and in what colour. But then, as McKenna so kindly points out, even after the hours spent sleeping and eating have been totted up and added to sales assisting, there are still forty-ish hours a week that could be spent creating. Perhaps the lack of production has as much to do with an obsession with Grey’s Anatomy or a need to finish a season of Game of Thrones in one sitting.
McKenna works his audience up into almost a state of frustration. Uncomfortable shifts are noticeable in audience members who are being stripped bare by the man on the stage. Insecurities being preached with toe-curling accuracy but done so with style and comic precision, affirmed by the audible splutters of laughter. Unlike other pieces of its caliber, that leave an audience raw and on the brink, McKenna soothes his followers. Bringing them back down and reinstating what is already known that you, as much as anyone else, have the right to be a writer and a performer and not just a salesman. With kind words, akin to those your mother would hush you with, Writer/Performer/Salesman (A New Play About Retail) assures that only when the “real artists come knocking” may you “relinquish your dreams” but until then they are yours to cherish and cultivate.
