Review: Paulina Lenoir: Puella Eterna

What a question. On a spiritual odyssey, the fabulously formidable Paulina Lenoir glides into the audience, thrusting a microphone at a near-the-back chap who looks suitably nervous. “What is love?” she asks, pleadingly. His reply is barely a whisper: “Baby don't hurt me?”

Which is very funny – if you know your 90s dance anthems – but also apt, given that Lenoir had demanded he yank out a lock of his own hair earlier. The Swiss-Mexican designer-turned-clown has conjured quite a spectacle here, a visual feast of gravity-defying costume, puppetry, rage, dance – interpretive and druggy nightclub – and gleefully awkward crowdwork. 

The titular icon is a fictional poet who guides us through her life, from baby-puppeted birth to rose-tossed passing. It isn’t wildly original, in truth – some may find Eterna a too-lite marriage of Julia Masli’s award-laden eccentrics, and Lucy Pearman’s grosser grotesques. In fact the show was created with Lucy Hopkins (the ‘high priestess’ of clown who co-ran Heroes, where many fine absurdists shone) and they’ve produced an unarguably fertile setting for Lenoir’s varied talents, aided by some sharp sound design.

The colourful hour builds to an emotional finale, too, and another eternal question, as Eterna’s ghost drifts among us, seeking enlightenment. “Where do we go?”

Soho Theatre and a tour, more than likely.