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Sure Look It, Fuck It was written and performed in the Project Arts Centre by Clare Dunne, who has worked in numerous films and stages such as Druid, Abbey Theatre, St Ann’s Warehouse NY, and The National Theatre London amongst others. The piece was a THISISPOPBABY theatre production, best known for their international show, RIOT. Sure Look It, Fuck It was directed by Tom Creed, a theatre and opera director based in Dublin who was nominated for Best Opera Productions at the Irish Times Awards; musically accompanied by Clare Dunne’s cousin, Ailbhe Dunne.

As soon as Clare Dunne runs into the auditorium she embraces the spectators and invites them to participate in her mantra by making them say all together, “Fuck it.” Dunne performed a character called Missy who just came back to Dublin completely broke from New York after trying to ‘make it’ there. She is jobless and has to live with her parents again. She comically declares her rhymes and shares her anxious and distracted thoughts she had during an interview. She gets so distracted, then, Ailbhe comes into scene with a guitar; Missy makes a comment about Spain and Lorcan poems (Federico García Lorca, a revolutionary Spanish playwright and poet) and beautifully, comically embraces a form of Poema del Cante Jondo — a vocal style of Andalusian poem in flamenco. She ludicrously attempted to recreate flamenco, which definitely added a colorful flow to the performance. One would also notice the work of the musician, as well as lighting design by Sarah Jane Shiels and sound design by Ivan Birthistle, who all together created this enchanted Andalusian atmosphere, which was, indeed, well appreciated by some Spanish spectators amongst the audience as noticed. Besides, Dunne and her variety of lyrical words and songs such as rapping an imitation of the Italian opera singer Andrea Bocelli’s ‘Time to Say Goodbye’ as well as popular songs like ‘She’s a Maniac’ by Michael Sembello, gave her performance a vast palette of colours, metaphorically speaking, which captivated the audience members throughout.

The spectators go into this journey between the realms of reality and illusion, memory and thought that when combined, lead the character towards the discovery of the self, of the true values of life after going through difficult situations—which is similar to the concept of the story of Zeno of Cyprus. At a point of the play, the performance has a Beckettian style, for instance, when the character has an existentialist conversation with the lighting coming from above whistle she’s trapped in the nothingness of the foggy stage. Thence, in the end Missy leaves the audience with this meditative notion that everything is grand and that “We’re all deadly.” She also refers to the, somehow, philosophical thought that one should live in the “here and now” and to appreciate the moment and value the joys of existence in the sharing of real experiences with the people around you. Missy went to the other side of the world to rediscover herself and to understand her own inner needs, to reconquer her inner naive child who once enjoyed the beautiful simplicity of life.