Despite all the best intentions, sometimes a theatre show just does not work. For me, Caldo con Enjundia’s Bar Ensueño is that show. Perhaps my reaction is an anomaly – the audience in my company seemed to lap up what was on offer. For me, confusion and irritation were in abundance: quite frankly I felt overwhelmed and concurrently, uninterested.

Shoreditch’s Rich Mix is currently playing host to CASA: Latin American Theatre Festival. The festival is brimming with delectable food options, cabaret performances and even erotic poetry readings – it is fantastic that Rich Mix supports this festival as it only enhances London’s rich cultural scene. However, this particular Chilean comedy missed the mark.

A promising start, the stage is host to a charming array of dishevelled locals who frequent Bar Ensueño, the town’s only pub. Valeria Soto is amusing as the frumpy love interest, she provides much of the humour in this chaotic production; her face has an uncommon ability to remain constantly animated. The actors cannot be criticised for showing a lack of enthusiasm.

To its credit, Bar Ensueño is positively bursting at the seams with energy and frivolity. The wardrobe is as chaotic as the scenes themselves; the cast of five are dressed head to toe in colourful attire that distinctly separates each character. The only female onstage, Soto, is dressed in an intentionally clumsy bundle of patterns and colours. Her male counterparts are adorned in an equally cluttered manner.

Despite the audience’s eager adoration for the production, I felt bombarded with obstacles that stopped my possible enjoyment of the show. The subtitles were sluggishly displayed on a small LCD screen to the top left of the stage, meaning whenever a cast member stood upstage to the left, the subtitles were blocked from view. Even in clear sight, the actors churned through the script so feverishly that the words seemed unable to keep up pace. The camouflaged subtitles rendered it near impossible to gauge what exactly was transpiring.

In honesty, I had no clue why everyone on stage was yelling to the plucky strums of a Spanish guitar. Instead, I tried to savour the action that was unfurling onstage. To their credit the actors are a pleasure to watch; their unrelenting energy serves the chaos well and maintains a swift rhythm.  Yet, the chaos on stage escaped decoding, the manic actions of the cast were pure slapstick that left me feeling cold.

The performance was loud, in every sense of the world. I felt ostracised by my lack of understanding and could not enter into this world with sparse visual signposts.

CASA: Latin American Theatre Festival was at Rich Mix. For more information see the Rich Mix website.