You have GOT to see this show: 300 PAINTINGS . Never has “bipolar disorder” or art seemed so accessible or fun! I am not being flip. This one-man show is built on the shoulders and psyche of an Australian stand up comic diagnosed with bipolar disorder who’s made his way through the USA, Europe, the UK and the Edinburgh Festival, and now the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge. Alone on the stage of Farkas Hall (also the Hasty Pudding Theater) stands Sam Kissajukian who in 90 minutes traces his extraordinary creation of 300 paintings at the intersection of art and mental health. I’ve never seen or heard anything like it, as hilarious as it is illuminating– and ultimately inspiring.
Kissajukian delivers his true life tale in a bubbling stream of consciousness as we are carried along–at first intrigued, perhaps worried, then increasingly dazzled– by his wit and talent. It seems he decided to give up standup– though it clearly inflects his delivery– and sequestered himself in an abandoned bunker of a cake factory where he eventually found an outlet for a manic bipolar episode in painting. Never having painted before, he proceeded unencumbered with the confidence of Picasso to create some 300 paintings using ordinary house paint.
We get to see these works projected on a large screen behind him. They are not bad. They may be good. We are not sure. We don’t care. They are manifestations of who he is when he painted them, and we are getting a crack at understanding the workings of an unusual mind in progress, during which time Mr. Kissajukian harnessed a new set of tools to express himself– now on canvas. Along the way Kissajukian careens through the high-powered worlds of big business, AI, and tech, in a manic maze of absurdly funny real-life adventures.
I found myself full of questions: What is painting? What is art? What is mental illness? What is creativity? How does my own mind work? What is the intersection of all those things? What happens when we cut loose, take the road less or NEVER traveled? And you can ask him all of these things yourself out in the lobby where he’s waiting for you once he’s left the stage. I also found myself in awe of this performer’s spirit and courage, to unabashedly talk about his own mental illness, to open himself to his audience which did not feel like an audience at all, but rather like a group of companions on the same continuum sharing this part of a journey.
Sam Kissajukian’s personal experience, though very specific, is absolutely universal, damn liberating, and laugh out loud funny. I won’t tell you how it ends– but once the show is over there’s more to come as we are invited to share the stage and walk through an exhibit of his inner world. DO NOT MISS 300 PAINTINGS at Farkas Hall 12 Holyoke Street, Harvard Square, Cambridge THROUGH OCTOBER 25!!
