A review. Fringe Festival 2007, BATS Theatre. Reviewed 08 Feb 07
ANGIE FARROW opens The Bowler Hat with Rene Magritte’s funeral, taking the artistic and surrealist license to create his death for the audience. Magritte is there naked on top of the coffin, or is he? His clothes, the ones that appear in many of his paintings – a dark suit, white shirt and bowler hat – are also missing. A priest in regal archbishop garb enters carrying a radio in a Joseph Cornell-type box and presides over the proceedings while Magritte’s wife and others, talk amongst themselves, in particular about Catholicism and nakedness. From here, the space and time move in and out of reality and dreaminess from a staged dance production to a carrot-chomping detective trying to find the killer of a drowned woman, or is that woman Magritte’s mother? And is Magritte also a suspect? And, the beat goes on. Magritte appears in his own play, reading his lines; and, just when we didn’t know what would happen next, it becomes clear, or not, but that is not the writer’s intention, or is it?
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