How to Art is a superb clowning commentary on the contemporary art scene. It deserves to pack out, so book now then read on at your leisure.

Twenty five years ago Circa Theatre produced Yasmina Reza’s ART, predicated on an art-lover’s purchase of a very expensive white-on-white painting and his art-speak attempts to explain it to two close friends. My NBR review included this:
“Before becoming a playwright, Yasmina Reza trained as an actor at the Jacques Lecoq School in Paris, which specialises in classical clowning. This orientation shows in ART. Each character is flawed, vulnerable and deeply human. In their quest for love and meaning beyond our collective existential angst, they can be, paradoxically, very cruel. For all their social and behavioural armour, they are fundamentally emotional beings.”

Fresh from Auckland, despite having premiered in November last year, How to Art – created by Katie Burson and Georgie Llewellyn – is described in publicity as “a physical theatre-clown-fruit mash-up about making art, surviving, and chasing mass a-peel.”

It’s clearly inspired by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan’s infamous single banana duct-taped to a gallery wall. Entitled ‘Comedian’ and created in 2019 as a limited edition of three, number two was sold in 2024 for $6.2 million to a cryptocurrency entrepreneur who then, as recorded in Wikipedia, “ate the banana onstage, comparing it to a crypto asset and saying, ‘the real value is the concept itself’.”

How to Art doubles down, or rather doubles up, by taping two life-sized Bananas to a wall in a gallery that also displays a sealed condom, shoulder bags and gigantic cigarettes, a fruit bowl and a can of Campbell’s Soup. Pre-show, I look for signs of movement in the Bananas, see none and assume they are well-crafted effigies. Huge respect, then, at discovering these are the actors; the Burson and Llewellyn clowning duo.

Every element of their exquisitely physicalised awakening, freeing themselves from constraint, discovering their environment, their rudimentary voices then us, is endearing. No wonder every indication that they’d like an audience member to help out with something is so readily accepted throughout the hour.

The innocent delight of their coming into being is interrupted by an uptight and officious Marketing Director, unerringly distilled by Bronwyn Ensor. For all her sense of superiority, she is blind to much we are privy to. On the other hand, the Bananas, who discover they are both called Kevin, are blissfully unaware they are there to be sold despite the MD’s wielding of red stickers.

The other art works are whimsically incorporated into the action as the ever-more emboldened Kevins claim the space – and us. Each discovery provokes a different emotional reaction, not least at the apparent fate of cousin Simon. As for their self-discovery of how a-peeling they are and what lies beneath their skins … Suffice to say there is pathos to offset the delicious comedy.

A stunning video compilation juxtaposes classical, modern and dare I say absurdist art at breakneck speed and a voice-over (uncredited) opines on art and name-drops in increasingly ghastly tones. Oh, and the Marketing Director has aspirations as an artist herself.  

The design elements – Production design by Rob Byrne; Props and Object Design by Tse-Yu Lin; Costume Design by Dan Collings; Sound Design by Fia Haugh; Lighting Design (and technical operation) by Alylai Flynn – flawlessly contribute to a whole that is a living art work in itself.

Produced by Charlie Underhill for the Ratbags collaborative hothouse, How to Art offers a great deal more than slip-on-a-banana-skin slapstick.

Copyright © in the review belongs to the reviewer

It’s fair to say, I’ve never seen a live theatre production quite like this one.

That statement could mean any one of a number of things but, in the case of How To Art, it means the work is extraordinary, occasionally bizarre, surreal, fantastical, irreverent, and yet well within the scope of every audience member’s personal experience. In short, it’s a rich exploration of the art gallery experience as seen through the eyes of two bananas.

I’ll say that again in case you missed it, through the eyes of two bananas (played superbly by Katie Burson and Georgie Llewellyn).

Now that you’ve had time to recover from that minor shock, I can happily add that the entire 70-minute experience is curated by a somewhat fierce gallery manager (Bronwyn Ensor), herself an artist whose work we also get to experience, who doesn’t actually help us to understand what’s going on even just a little bit. She might, however, red sticker you and tell the world you’re ‘sold!’

Don’t be concerned, though, it’s all totally fabulous, accessible, relentlessly funny, and splendidly performed.

How To Art is staged upstairs in the studio space of the Basement Theatre. The odd irony of this taps into the absurdist essence of the show and is almost too much for this elderly aficionado to handle – a theatre called The Basement that has a studio space, not in the basement as might be expected but in the opposite direction, tucked away just under the roof, and at the top of the most torturous staircase that anyone ever designed. Don’t let that put you off though, no matter how decrepit you think you are (and I am), you’re still young and fit enough – like most of last night’s audience – to bound up those stairs like a gazelle because How To Art is thoroughly worth any effort you might choose to make to experience it. I didn’t bound because, unlike the rest of last night’s audience who completely filled the theatre, I sit significantly outside the demographic that might be innately attracted to this work, but, again, don’t let that stop you because ancient moi had a most extraordinary and satisfying evening.

So, there are lots of complexities, lots of incongruities, and believe me lots and lots of laughter. My two companions, who accompany me on most of my theatrical adventures, chuckled, giggled, gurgled, tittered, snorted, and hooted with full-on belly laughter for the entire duration of the show.

Okay so what is it?

Well, it’s ‘art’, innit?

Reading back over what I’ve written, I can happily say it’s exactly what I’ve described – a laugh fest, rich in unassuming (yet intentional) satire, a parody of sorts, full of prior knowledge and intellectual smarts, performed with excellence, and which totally transcends its source material to the extent that, if you didn’t know about Maurizio Cattelan’s Comedian it wouldn’t matter a single bit.

So, the experience.

We find ourselves seated in the attractively appointed Basement Studio theatre, and it’s clear from the outset, that we’re in a pristine gallery setting – white walls, a few expressionistic artworks, a plinth with artwork atop – a fabric-constructed colourful bowl of fruit. Yes, an artwork replicating the classic still life bowl of fruit painted by everyone and their dog. Flicking through books of famous art, how often do we come across images of bowls of fruit entitled something euphemistic like ‘Still Life with Nude’, but not in this case.

On the wall in front of us is a central feature that consists of what appears to be two, lifelike human dummies, duct taped to the display wall. Yes, you guessed it, the dummies are dressed in leotard-style, full body, banana-like costumes.

Wrong again, Lexie. Remember I warned you about assumptions and incongruities? When the lights come up, the two figures that have been duct taped to the wall prove to be living, breathing human beings that come on down and I am the dummy for not noticing. You could be forgiven for thinking that the two actors were manikins borrowed from Smith and Caughey or blowup sex toys of a slightly more human variety, but no, not so, they are real people and for the next hour – give or take a few minutes – the bananas cavort, dance, limp and simper, prance, gambol and frolic, up, across and around the space frequently breaking the fourth wall to engage with the audience who are seated in an L-shaped figure at the point of which, entrances and exits are made. I’m tempted to tell you all the funny bits, but I am not going to give in to this temptation because the work is so beautifully integrated that to give away one gag would mean explaining all the others, and ‘we ain’t got time for that?’ Take it from me this is one of the funniest shows I have ever seen anywhere – it’s slapstick, knockabout, clown-like physical comedy, with recognisable language features that almost sound like English but seldom are, and which, in any other situation. might not be recognisable at all.

The context of the show, a context from which it wildly deviates, is a noteworthy piece of conceptual art that garnered interest from every corner of the planet in 2019. I first saw mention of it on the Arts Channel during an episode of Portrait Artist of the Year. Incongruous? That’s just the start of it! Maybe you saw it on Twitter, on Instagram, on the cover of the New York Post, it was everywhere: a banana duct-taped to a white, gallery wall. In a few short weeks it collected a range of monickers, but its real name is Comedian and it’s a concept work by absurdist Maurizio Cattelan – but is it ‘art as’ we know it, Jim? It’s just a banana taped to a wall; anyone could do that. Couldn’t they?

How To Art makes no attempt to answer this somewhat metaphysical question, but it does riff magnificently on Cattelan’s concept in ways that the artist doubtless would have approved. Apropos of nothing, Cattelan, an Italian artist, once replaced a toilet at the Guggenheim with a fully functioning gold one. He called the artwork America. The year was 2016, and we know how that ended up. Not on a white wall, but in a White House.

It was Warhol who said, ‘art is whatever you can get away with’. Cattelan got away with it – three versions of Comedian sold for $US150,000 each – and Ratbags, the company staging How To Art did too. The evening ends with a riotous auction, and Ratbags certainly did quite well out of that, thank you very much!

Whether any of this qualifies as art – or if it’s in fact entirely bananas – is up to you, art is, after all, subjective. One thing that isn’t up for debate though: the show itself is an absolute winner.

The promo tells us that ‘two bananas wake up duct-taped to the wall of a prestigious art gallery and meet their maker. An audience, two bananas, four artists, (three actors), and the eternal question ‘will anyone get paid?’

We are told that How To Art is ‘birthed from the burnt-out brains of Katie Burson and Georgie Llewellyn’ and that it is a ‘physical theatre-clown-fruit mash-up about making art, surviving, and chasing mass a-peel. Jesters, collectors, and narcissists reign in this low-brow exploration of the cost of creativity and the art of living.’

Puns abound, too, in the fruit of these luvvies’ loins.

‘In an industry that values youth, perfection and mass production, can two bruised bananas go the distance? Dripping in desperation, can they find their place before they’re put up for sale?’

It’s left to me to tell you, yes, they certainly can!

‘How to Art is the debut production from Ratbags, a new collaborative hothouse for multidisciplinary performance-making in Tāmaki Makaurau, led by Katie Burson.’ It’s been in development for the past year and the care lavished on the work is obvious – it’s fluid, seamless, manic, and oh so much fun. Performances by Katie Burson herself, Georgie Llewellyn, and Bronwyn Ensor are absolutely outstanding and a plug for Ensor who has cleverly chosen a different comic pathway to Burson and Llewellyn, one that absolutely works a treat. How many laughs can one girl get from simply unzipping her bag and pulling on gloves?

It’s a team effort though, and heaps of umere has to go to designers Dan Collings, Tse-Yu Lin, and Rob Byrne, sound guru Lucas Haugh, lighting whizz and technical operator Alylai Flynn, and to producer Charlie Underhill who has done a sterling job in pulling it all together.

Almost final words go to absurdist playwright Eugene Ionesco who said, ‘a work of art is above all an adventure of the mind’, and to eighteenth century essayist, literary critic and social commentator William Hazlitt who summed up How To Art when he wrote ‘great thoughts reduced to practice become great acts.’

Tautoko to those sage words, and a final word from me: How To Art is on for two more nights and it’s pay what you can. I guarantee a fruitful night, and you’d be totally bananas to miss it.

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