Furiozo: A Man Looking For Trouble may be loud with rage – but its tenderness echoes. Piotr Sikora’s clown is, on the face of it, loud and lawless: a grunting, swaggering figure of toxic masculinity, propelled by fantasy shootouts, drug-and-alcohol-fuelled rampages, and a manic disregard for the rules. Violent, beautiful, and heartbreakingly human, Furiozo: A Man Looking For Trouble is packed with the kind of emotional precision that leaves an imprint long after it ends.

Sikora here constructs a full yet fragile world where rage and poignancy coexist. The show resists parody and instead offers a study in contradiction – aggressive yet tender, larger-than-life yet painfully human. Furiozo performs aggression, rebellion, and alpha dominance, but with a constant, almost childlike need for consent and care from his audience. Every touch is asked for, every invitation to play is offered, not forced. In a show about rage and violence, this persistent seeking of permission feels, in a sense, most radical.

Each audience member drawn into Furiozo’s world becomes his co-star. He may perform dominance, but never at another’s expense. Furiozo lifts his audience members up, inviting them into the spotlight with care. Each interaction feels generous and precise, and there is deep empathy in these exchanges, a kind of quiet understanding that undercuts the character’s more volatile outbursts.

Among the shootouts and snarling, Furiozo’s most intimate moments unfold with his mannequin lover, held delicately in his arms. There is an absurdity to this romance, but it’s also incredibly moving: a fragile love story built from a plastic torso and genuine longing, and grounded in consistent, conscious consent. It is in these moments that we begin to keenly feel the show’s emotional power. Beneath the bravado is longing. Beneath the performance of masculinity is a desire for connection, for safety, for love.

There’s something too familiar in Furiozo. A shadow of boys I have known, shaped by social pressures and intergenerational trauma. Pulled too early into danger and taught to bury softness beneath bravado. Who move through the world with danger at their heels and softness locked deep inside. And when the façade of the alpha-male cracks, a little boy peers out, longing to be seen. That flicker of vulnerability, of the soul who lies beneath, is what lingers – and what breaks the heart.

Furiozo: A Man Looking For Trouble is a triumph. At its core is a character in conflict: a tough guy with a soft underbelly, spinning between moments of bravado and sudden, aching vulnerability. Beautiful, feral, funny, and devastating, it cracks open the armour of macho posturing to reveal a soft, pulsing heart. 

Recommended Drink: Vodka, straight from the bottle, Furiozo-style. Live fast, die.

Performances of Furiozo: A Man Looking For Trouble have now concluded at Adelaide Fringe 2025.