Disclaimer: I’m not a dance guy. I can barely move around my room in the morning without stubbing several toes, and I’m certainly not the right person to be analyzing choreography and fluidity and movement, or whatever words you use to talk about dance. I appreciate the human form and I like to see bodies move, but I have no idea what the hell 99% of it means. But, hey, I like watching So You Think You Can Dance, so not all is lost on me.
Meagan O’Shea’s The Atomic Weight of Happiness is rooted in her dance background and the show revolves around several dance sequences that, honestly, went way over my head. Spelling out the alphabet in dance moves to represent each letter probably wouldn’t be lost on a preschooler, but I was experiencing some confusion. O’Shea starts the show even before the requisite UNO intros and sponsorship thank-yous by quietly and intently writing human emotions on a blackboard to stage right. “Vulnerable,” “frustrated,” “excited,” “brazen,” and so on. It’s a great hook to get people into the show. O’Shea tells the story of her life through audience participation wherein several audiences members read out her back-story with little flashlights. It’s really quite clever.
But then the dancing takes over the show and I liked a few of the moves, sure, but it’s like when I look at abstract art and say, “I like that red colour, really nice,” and the person beside me is talking about how the same painting represents the rise of patriarchy in modern society or something: whoosh, right over my head. O’Shea’s a good dancer, tons of personality, looks comfortable on stage, and perhaps some dance enthusiasts in the cozy little Intrepid Theatre Club were thrilled to the gills. But I didn’t get it.
Oh, and then there’s the bike and the… laughing. Anyone who’s seen The Atomic Weight of Happiness knows what I’m talking about and perhaps just had a little cringe. Or, a big one. The recurring scene is that O’Shea jumps on an exercise bike and starts pedaling like mad, laughing maniacally to create the energy of happiness and thus continue the show. Her laugh is so annoying and seemingly neverending that by the end of the show I just kept bracing myself, hoping she wasn’t going to get back on that fucking bike. I couldn’t control thinking to myself, “If she gets back on that bike and starts cackling again I am seriously going to lose my shit.” And that’s no way to enjoy a play.