At Dublin Fringe Festival, Mustard, written and performed by Eva O’Connor and directed by Hildegard Ryan, offered a hard-hitting show about heartbreak and mental health. The story followed an eponymous protagonist, Eva, who poetically explained the story of her heartbreak and fondness of mustard – a strange but ultimately useful prism through which she explored her mental health struggles.
Mustard felt like spoken-word theatre – each scene took on a certain cadence. O’Connor’s words, and the way that she said them, illustrated the play’s imagery to the audience. The onstage props, which included jars of mustard, a towel and an inflatable pool, seemed to emphasise this imagery.
A distinctly female presence shone through the play’s storyline as it focused on the female perspective of heartbreak and different intergenerational attitudes of women towards mental health. The play also explored the bond between its two most prominent characters – Eva and her mother – alongside the peculiarities of female relationships. Eva’s mother typically brushed her mental health issues aside, embodying the ethos of an older generation of women who were told to get on with their lives and stay the course, no matter what. This gave the show a feminist angle as it highlighted aspects of female relationships that are not usually platformed.
Mustard, and its sharp yellow colour, served as an interesting allegory for Eva’s struggles – which she suffers with in the fallout of a heartbreak. She repeatedly says “my mind went to mustard” in situations that evoke anxiety, embarrassment or upsetting emotions. Mustard is Eva’s self-destructive coping mechanism for blocking out her negative emotions and its sharp yellow colour is frequently used to evoke the pain of her mental illness.
One of the show’s most pertinent moments was when Eva, at the peak of her heartbreak, decided to buy as much mustard as she could afford and coat herself in it. O’Connor’s harrowing words cut through the audience, building an intensity which climaxed when she began rubbing mustard onto herself, thus creating a moment of silence that directly contrasted her previous frantic energy.
The tense nature of multiple scenes or the play’s intermittent repetition made it feel a little too long and drawn out. That said, this repetition also depicted the circular mentality that can sometimes accompany mental illness, which served to further demonstrate Eva’s pain.
In the final scene, Eva throws her ex’s beloved bike into the Thames as revenge for his change of heart, demonstrating the anger and cruelty that can arise from heartbreak, and creating a bittersweet ending to the play.
Overall, Fringe’s production of Mustard didn’t shy away from the difficulties and pain that come with heartbreak and mental illness. It was a bitter yet poignant play that offered a fascinating commentary on the nature of female relationships.
Mustard ran in the Abbey Theatre as part of Dublin Fringe Festival. It was due to run until September 19th, but the final performance was unfortunately cancelled following the new coronavirus restrictions announced in Dublin on September 18th.
