Pursuit of Happiness by Pavol Liska and Kelly Copper (review)

Jeffrey Schoenaers, Ana Štefanec Knez, Bence Mezei, and Luke Thomas Dunne in Pursuit of Happiness. (Photo: Andrej Lamut.)

Pursuit of Happiness—a collaboration between the US-based Nature Theater of Oklahoma and the Slovenian dance company En-Knap Group—uses melodramatic US western film imagery and the titular nod to the Declaration of Independence to explore the relationship between spectators and actors seeking happiness through performance. With actors costumed as cowgirls and cowboys and the performance set in an overly stereotyped saloon, other western film characteristics were not difficult for spectators to imagine; for example, the endings of such films where the protagonist is happy and content after achieving a goal. In Pursuit of Happiness, such an ending was impossible. In line with the “inalienable right” referenced in the performance’s title, spectators were reminded by the show’s end that it is the pursuit of happiness that is guaranteed to actor and viewer, not its achievement.

Jeffrey Schoenaers, Ana Štefanec Knez, and Luke Thomas Dunne in Pursuit of Happiness. (Photo: Andrej Lamut.)

In the performance’s first part, three cowgirls and a pair of cowboys gathered before a stage-wide bar to tell unhappy stories rooted in family conflicts, animal suffering, and human and artistic malaise. The performers often interrupted one another with bizarre non sequiturs, tangential comments, or other diversions (for example, a barroom fistfight over stolen cowboy boots) in a possible test of the popular saying, “I could complain, but who would listen?” We listened and watched this stagecoach to nowhere; like the actors before us, we too toiled in their pursuit of pleasure. Meanwhile, a whiskey-slinging bartender dressed in a mariachi costume (Bence Mezei) silently observed. His silence in the first part made his complete takeover of the performance in the farcical and spectacle-filled second part both unexpected and funny. In this later part, Mezei directly addressed the audience to pitch a screenplay about how he and the other performers attempted to overshadow their failed personal lives with artistic acclaim. They take En-Knap Group on the road to an Iraqi battlefield, where they dance to end the second US-led war. Mezei’s nearly ninety-minute monologue about the failed endeavor, which he and the company enacted onstage in their western-themed costumes, was a clear crowd favorite compared to the first part, which led several viewers to walk out.

Although the group’s motivations are self-serving, their performance produces a result that Lysistrata might cheer. The group is able to stop Iraqi and NATO forces from firing at each other just moments after beginning their dance routine beside a bomb crater positioned between the two sides. Mezei calls their performance a “veritable apotheosis of the artform.” However, what we see onstage are the performers square dancing, costumed in pink feather boas, garish headdresses, outlandish makeup, and cowboy attire. The incongruity between Mezei’s lofty description of the event and what we witnessed was a source of laughter. In a surprising turn of events, NATO and Iraqi soldiers intrigued by the dancing stopped shooting and began a dance-off that ended with them transfixed and paired up to slow dance and grind against each other. Stereotypes of sex-starved soldiers with latent homosexual urges elicited cheap laughs from many viewers and made such an unbelievable situation almost plausible. En-Knap performers standing in for soldiers nearly had sex on the dance floor / battlefield moments before a drone shot them back to their battle positions. Firing at the soldiers also meant destroying any happiness Mezei derived from achieving his aim, but that was not the drone’s only target. Soon more drones arrived and the dancers also became their prey.

The challenge of attaining happiness through the exercise of their craft was a major conflict for performers in the play, and the audience...