utter bull-shit

I was dispatched last night to cover the premiere of a supposedly "controversial" piece of performance theatre which was the centrepiece of the Manchester International Festival.
While open minded when it comes to art, I didn't quite know what to expect. Il Tiempo del Postino, you see, had already caught the headlines for its supposedly shocking content.
It was a decidedly bizarre affair. A medley of live performances, put together by 15 of that scene's leading lights, the first half was accessible enough. There was trompe l'oeil, singing, audience interaction and humour.
Then came the bit we'd all been waiting for. The final 30 minutes - by Matthew Barney, or Mr Bjork - was a nightmarish sequence which seemed to leave much of the audience - myself included - pretty bemused.
Traditional theatre-goers would view his oeuvre as an outrage, and no doubt in many ways that was the intention.

Sinister veiled women, naked from the waist down, bent backwards into the crab pose – exposing their most personal parts towards the audience - and urinated on the floor.
Another naked woman - back to the audience and her hand firmly wedged somewhere it's not designed to go - had black plastic pulled tightly over her head and shoulders by two men.
While the nudity did not offend me it felt gratuitous and shallow. Perhaps that was the point – that we're so used to such images now that we have all been desensitised. Maybe there was no point. It was really quite hard to tell.
What did make me uncomfortable, was the domination over women. All the male characters were clothed and none had their faces covered or were made to get into humiliating positions.
The performance borrowed heavily from the dark pop-surrealism of filmmaker David Lynch, but had much in common with the hollow shock factor which accompanies the annual entries to the Turner Prize.
Throughout, it felt like the audience – mostly arty young things familiar with the idea of conceptual performance – were all waiting for something. Namely Ross the Highland bull.
The famous bovine, when it was finally led down a gangplank at the back of the stage, was led to a fake cow’s behind (don't even ask), and everyone held their breath and waited.
It seemed that first night nerves had got the better of the animal, because precisely nothing happened. For many it seemed both a crushing anti-climax and a relief. The rumour had been that the poor animal would mount the plastic contraption, which was attached to a car on the set.
Like many others, I came out of the theatre feeling a little confused but certainly not disturbed or offended by what I had seen. The whole evening felt very pretentious and lacked substance. While there's nothing wrong with challenging an audience's preconceptions, there just seemed to be little point to the whole boring charade. I won't be rushing back to see something similar.