2015PROJECT_YAProject Haha is a brilliant sequence of hypnotic trances. Utterly surrealist, one girl, clad in a yellow lemon-print dress and smiling ecstatically hums whilst the other smacks herself against a wall. Project Haha is an abstract and psychedelic exploration of our desire to be happy now.

Initially, the performance appears to be two different emotions, both throbbing with intensity, battling against each other. Moments of Project Haha: a girl laying on a green rug miming the sun beaming on her, and another jumping up and down as she holds a bouquet of balloons that are neatly stabbed, are brilliant examples of physical theatre heavy with meaning. However, as the play progresses, its insanity appears to be almost self-indulgent, the meaning disassociates itself from the piece, it is difficult to find a consistent link with which to process what is unfolding, and why there are two perfectly synchronised, broken lolitas  hanging flowers on a string of fairy lights.

A juddering piece of work, its craziness is compelling, and its madness becomes at once both beautiful and disturbing. The construction of the set is breathtaking, a hybrid cross between a pop-up café in Shoreditch and the world’s most ethereal lecture theatre; Casale and Ryndak imitate the hallucienogenic effect that manic happiness can have in a way that draws you in entirely. The words “Smile, it’s free” are exposed for all their absurdity, the world of hollow rhetoric seems miles away from the drug-induced trance that the two have drawn with their careful performance. The piece takes everyday objects and disassociates them  from their reality; the pegs, the lemons, the taped up TV set. Project Haha implies the process of convincing ourselves to be happy means distanting ourselves from the banality. The effect mesmerising. Project Haha is a beautifully structured, effectively surrealist and excellently acted piece of theatre. Verbally, visually and physically absurd, it will only improve with development.

Project Haha is playing from 21-23, 25-30 August, as part of Edinburgh Festival Fringe. For more information, visit the Fringe website.