Cindy Marcolina - Page 8

It’s all a bit chaotic and disorganised narratively, with an unfortunate lack of poetry in the text itself. While Malseed takes an individual approach to her story, she doesn’t really say much of what lies behind the events. Belfast is painted like a dangerous city, but the causes for that are left up in the air.

What did our critic think of OH MY HEART, OH MY HOME at Summerhall?

It’s Midsummer’s Eve, and a young man is ready to plunge into the Thames to make his sacrifice. As we stand alongside him, we dive into British mythology and pagan beliefs as he goes on a journey defined by backhandedly bitter irony. Nathaniel Jones writes an ancient fable suspended in time, addressing the lies we tell ourselves in our attempts to romanticise our memory.

A deeply intimate performance by Robyn Hunter peels off the layers of bereavement and explores the reactive coping mechanisms we get wrapped up in. With effortless observational humour and a sadness only broken by bitterness, the piece unravels the fragmentation of the grieving experience through the eyes of a young woman.

It’s a very American coming-of-age story. The script follows all the correct beats and the direction tackles the necessary points for it to be a well-paced and flowing piece of theatre, but the characters are walking clichés. Everything is done abnormally by the book, including the performances by the budding actors. It’s high-energy and quick, but it doesn’t say much. Szymkowicz covers angst and anger, attraction and pettiness, grief and overcoming it.

A frighteningly life-sized portrait of the patriarchy. Built over the course of seven years with extracts from interviews with male-identifying individuals and their own personal stories, Them is rightfully enraging. From inculcating servitude from a young age to weaponised incompetence, the company breaks open toxic masculinity to reveal its inner workings.

Dementia is a scary prospect. The fate of many and incurable, it’s inevitable and painful for the patient and their family. Featuring interviews with professionals in the field of aged care and real-life stories, The Fish Bowl is a compassionate piece of theatre.

Echlin is an incredibly gifted writer. She visualises the pain of youth and externalises it with quiet humour and breezy observations that hide deep heartbreak. With a magnetic personality and expressive, captivating eyes, she takes her audience through a confessional journey where she tries to find out who she is and why she is like that. She has no need for props or sets: a simple stool and a microphone to add dynamism to her characters are enough for her to craft a hypnotic performance. 

David Head crafts an exquisite exploration of the relationship between humanity and technology with a big dash of capitalistic doom. Five stories are tied together by the dread and threat of an artificial future. With deadpan, confidently dark humour, Head paints an alarming picture of a world that’s not too far off from where we’re standing.

Edith Alibec writes a charismatic personality with a bitter edge and a silver tongue. She is incredibly funny, with a darkly sarcastic worldview cemented by side glances and sardonic asides. We are witnesses to her pain, becoming the confidantes of her most private thoughts. She is a universally relatable individual to most millennials. From her relationship with her mother and her abandoned dreams to the search for love in the wrong places, Alibec pinpoints the contemporary malaise of the women in their 30s.

It’s dreamlike and nightmarish. Confusing and alarming. The piece works on a subliminal space, has a few jump scares, and it is, frankly, quite weird. While in earlier productions the concept was clear and definite, this instance sees a puzzling storyline that doesn’t entirely make sense.

“How much time do you spend worrying about your decisions?” This is a show for anxious people. Theatre-director-who-was-nearly-a-doctor Adam Lenson steps on stage directed by Hannah Moss and delivers a life-affirming piece about the what-ifs we all come across.

Tipping into the contemporary interest in murders, Chasing Butterflies is a compelling, engrossing play that will have you hooked until the very end. While the suspicions of the farsighted may be correct from the start, a riveting origin story and an extensive list of gory details keep them on their toes. While the actor is slightly too young to come off as the weathered veteran of the law, he gives an impressively intense performance. As his character slips into compulsion, he amps up the pace of his delivery to a machine-gun speed before morbid moments of silence break up the horror he hears on the news.

The town where Anna and Eireni are studying has been hit by a number of racially provoked murders. There doesn’t seem to be a pattern, except that the victims are all immigrants. While a non-existing strand of organised crime is being blamed, the two women meet after a shocking event and decide to infiltrate a far-right festival to find out what’s going on.

All in all, the production feels like it’s only at the beginning of its life, as is the company, so there’s plenty of scope to grow and become the big feminist project it strives to be. A stronger script, more decisive vision, and an external eye will make all the difference.

An audience of two steps into a small black box. They’re separated by a wall and can only hear each other through headphones when they talk into a microphone. Without Sin is an intriguing project that tugs at our contemporary need to feel.

There’s loads of theatre at the Fringe. Some is excellent, some is average, some is… questionable. Polish company Song of the Goat present a retelling of Shakeseare’s Titus Andronicus in what could simply be described as a gothic, choral, impenetrable behemoth of a production. It’s transfixing for all the wrong reasons.

Gunter is an energetic, subtle, genuinely amusing, hard-hitting piece that ties the effects of violence and suspicion to the patriarchal structure and all its demands. Julia Grogan, Norah Lopez-Holden, and Hannah Jarrett-Scott materialise the story while Higman narrates it and contextualises it sitting at her drums, electric guitar in hand. Titles introduce the characters and set the scene, streamlining the process and maintaining a beckoning pace freed from the need of any lengthy explanation. Unshackled from the constraints of historical accuracy but rooted in the factual events, the show is feminist fringe theatre at its best.

It’s a visceral, truthful, moving performance. Haines is genuinely funny, balancing the horror of the stats that surround labiaplasty. It’s an exceptionally well-researched production, medically and humanly. Directed by Louise Orwin and starring Haines’s mother too, it’s an important show that could be pivotal to many with female genitals. High Steaks was a sold-out hit earlier in the year at VAULT Festival, it’s not hard to see why. Aptly, it’s now running at the Anatomy Lecture Theatre at Summerhall for a limited time at Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Beg, borrow, steal to nab a ticket. And bring your mum, your nan, your besties, and your allies.

Jim Culleton directs Andrew Bennett and Janet Moran as they take turns to open up in conversational confessional style. They do so in a liminal space designed by Zia Bergin-Holly. The set is suspended between interior and exterior: the outside wall of a building, with its stripped posters and lonely lamppost is at odds with the comfy armchair and barstools that stand in front of it. While Mairead and Mal meet old and new flames, O’Brien takes the opportunity to explore the fallout of repressed homosexuality and the rampant toxic relationship with alcohol.