Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – Patrick Dunning’s hybrid THE SIGNATURE PROJECT is a curious experiment but little else

• By drediman
• March 20, 2018
• No Comments

Patrick Dunning in “The Signature Project” at the Sheen Center.

On St. Patrick’s Day, fittingly, I attended a performance of Irish artist Patrick Dunning’s curious theatrical offering entitled The Signature Project at Off-Broadway’s Sheen Center. Anyone who knows me knows that I’m usually a sucker for out-of-the-box theatrical experiences. On paper, The Signature Project seems fascinating; it’s is an interdisciplinary production that utilizes theater, sophisticated multimedia, live music, and even dance to basically tell the history of and promote Mr. Dunning’s latest painting-cum-sculpture – an enormously-scaled work that’s made up of literally hundreds of thousands of signatures (each night’s audience contributes their own at the conclusion of the show).

I applaud Mr. Dunning’s ambition, but ultimately, the whole registers somewhat less than the sum of its diverse parts. In part, it’s because – aside from its huge size (76 ft x 36 ft), meticulous execution, and impressively drawn out timeframe – I failed to see the deeper artistic significance of the mural. As an exercise of intersecting the performing and visual arts in a more dynamic, “feedback”-type manner, The Signature Project beguiles. An certainly, Mr. Dunning is a charismatic-enough presence to host such an endeavor (directed by Eric Paul Vitale). But beyond that, the piece offers little else in terms of artistic sustenance.

SOMEWHAT RECOMMENDED

THE SIGNATURE PROJECT
Off-Broadway, Performance
Sheen Center
1 hour, 20 minutes (without an intermission)
Through March 25