“The urge to destroy is also a creative urge”
– Mikhail Bakunin.
MUSE is a new play based on the life of surrealist photographer Dora Maar and her relationship with Pablo Picasso.
Inevitably, to make someone a muse is to both glorify and dehumanize them —to divorce them from the reality of their own selves, to reduce them to colour, form, and expression, and at the same time to elevate them into eternity. But what is the price to pay for a place in the long halls of art history? Muse is a new play based on the life of surrealist photographer and artist Dora Maar and her relationship with Picasso.
As the enigmatic muse behind Picasso’s “Weeping Woman,” she appears always fragmented, not quite there, forever refracted and distorted through his gaze. The role of the muse has been long contemplated, but less often is the question posed to include the artist. The god takes from the blind worshipper just like the artist takes from the muse.
Here is the thing at the heart of this play, then: misenchantment, or the result of the unmasking of the glorified deity and revealing him as inevitably flawed.
Taking place during WWII, the play explores the inherent violence of the relationship between artist and muse. The god takes from the blind worshipper just like the artist takes from the muse. MUSE takes us on a surreal journey through time, colors, tears, blood, and fragments, asking what is the price to pay for a place in the long halls of art history?
MUSE is at Camden People’s Theatre 22nd – 25th August 2019.
