Have you ever met someone so beautiful that you didn’t know what to say? And then have you ever found yourself just saying ‘Yeah’ to everything that they say because you’re too fixated on how unbelievably beautiful they are? Tim Honnef has been there and apparently that’s how he ended up performing Jonas Muller’s
A sometimes touching though mostly baffling show.
Honnef turns out to be a lovely and engaging performer, asking the audience questions and making them a key part of Muller’s F*cking Masterpiece that charts his depression and obsession with his childhood love Lize. There are some lovely moments in the script and performance in which Muller/Honnef pin down the insanity of modern life from the lies we tell ourselves with our online identities to our apparent ability to stay ‘connected’ to others long after we’ve seen them in person. Muller’s F*cking Masterpiece subverts and plays with the audience’s expectations, as everything is not what it seems: Honnef wears a mask of Muller’s face and we can never be sure if the photos he’s showing us are actually the people he says they are. It’s an intriguing and disorientating journey through his life but the meandering style and the multitude of digressions means that we’re never quite sure what he’s trying to get across, which may be the point but it still remains very ineffective in making the audience properly engage with the material.
There’s no denying that there’s intelligence at work in this show but by never settling on a definite subject or having a clear reason for the various theatrical devices it renders much of the original ideas obsolete. It’s a shame because it feels like there are a few cracking shows hidden here that are waiting to be released. Ultimately it proves itself to be another contender for best show title at the Fringe but Jonas Muller Regrets Writing This F*cking Masterpiece is sadly a sometimes touching though mostly baffling show.
