4 Edinburgh shows which will stay with you for the rest of your life

The National

3 days ago

One such production is the extraordinary Works And Days (Lyceum, ends today) by Flemish company FC Bergman and Antwerp municipal theatre Toneelhuis.
Taking its title from a verse by the ancient Greek poet Hesiodos, the piece is a unique work of physical, visual, musical and philosophical theatre. The show – which is, at its core, a meditation on humanity's relationship with the land – begins with a startling image that brings pre-industrial human labour into spectacular conflict with the Victorian splendour of the Royal Lyceum theatre.
It would – for readers fortunate enough to have a ticket (or still manage to procure one) for this afternoon's final festival performance – be a sacrilegious spoiler to divulge the details of this opening scene. Indeed, the same is true of much of what takes place in this unforgettably brilliant theatre work.
Performed by eight adult players, one child actor and a remarkably well-behaved chicken, the piece is constructed of a series of astonishingly innovative theatre images and illusions. Presented episodically, this wordless performance evokes the fertility rituals and the working methods of the pre-industrial societies that account for most of human history.
The piece is ingeniously direct in breaking the barriers that modern capitalism places between most people and the production of the food we eat. The connection between the ritual slaughter of an animal and the conception of a human being is represented in terms that are simultaneously brutal and unexpectedly humorous.
The endless inventiveness of the piece encompasses the surprising and comic representation (and birthing) of an elephantine creature. It also includes the living anthropology of people dancing in stunningly colourful, conical costumes that are, simultaneously, visually transfixing and gloriously percussive.
The arrival of the industrial revolution – in the shape of a beautiful steampunk contraption – replaces gods with machines. The resultant ecstasy is literally, and spellbindingly, sexual.
All of these scenes are accompanied by extraordinarily evocative and varied music and sound, which is created live on-stage on an array of wind and percussion instruments.
By the time this remarkable theatre work reaches its shuddering conclusion, one's mind is reeling with thoughts about such subjects as the diverse history of pagan culture, the transition from feudalism to capitalism, and the destruction of Earth's ecology. Equally, however, one's senses have been fed copiously and pleasingly by a theatre of visual and aural spectacle that is continuously creative, regularly very funny and often deeply emotive.
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Another company that is renowned for creating work that builds an exquisite connection between the visual and the musical is Polish theatre group Song of the Goat. It is some 21 years since they presented the astonishing Chronicles – A Lamentation at the Fringe. It remains the single most powerful theatre production I have ever seen.
The company has undergone considerable change since then. Founded by Grzegorz Bral and Anna Zubrzycki, the Goats (as they are affectionately known) have been led for some years now solely by Bral (Zubrzycki continues her work in the great theatre city of Wrocław).
As its latest show, Hamlet – Wakefulness (Summerhall, until August 15), attests, the company retains a thoughtful and soulful aesthetic. At a little over an hour long, the production takes about a quarter of the time required to perform Hamlet – which is Shakespeare's longest play – in its entirety.
One should approach the piece, not as one might a work of narrative drama, but more as one would a live performance of a piece of choral music. Played in timeless, black costumes upon beautiful, dark metal furniture (a bed frame, a table and a series of chairs), the work seeks to evoke the emotions embedded within the Bard's play at their most visceral.
The double torture of Hamlet's sudden bereavement, followed by the metaphysical exposure of the murderous treachery of his mother and uncle, is represented in short, emotionally charged bursts of Shakespeare ('Mother, you have my father much offended'). More profoundly, however, it is expressed in the polyphonic song of the company and splendid, simple music played on a zither.
What is true of Hamlet is also true of Ophelia and the anguished ghost of the murdered King. As is often the case in song, little of the language is discernible.
The beautifully performed piece relies instead on the emotions conveyed by the human voice and upon the power of the image (such as a sudden explosion of red rose petals on the otherwise monochrome set). This Hamlet may not be the finest, most complete piece in the Goats' impressive oeuvre, but it is still among the most interesting theatre works you will see on this year's Fringe.
There is dramatic power of a very different kind in Consumed (Traverse, until August 24), Karis Kelly's dark comedy about four generations of women in one family in Northern Ireland. It's the 90th birthday of Eileen (played by Julia Dearden), the family's hard-as-nails matriarch, who is like a cross between Ian Paisley and Catherine Tate's irrepressible Nan.
Her daughter Gilly (Andrea Irvine) is fussing over the dinner, the party and the imminent arrival (from London) of her daughter Jenny (Caoimhe Farren) and granddaughter Muireann (Muireann Ní Fhaogáin). The men of the family – that is Gilly's husband and Jenny's other half – would appear to have fecked off.
The play that ensues is both gloriously outlandish and frighteningly pertinent. This is true of its, by turns, hilarious and anguished observations of the trauma that is passed down through families from generation to generation.
Inevitably, when the simmering resentments explode, they do so in the particularly combustible context of Irish politics and history. Young Muireann – who was raised in London and, therefore, speaks with an English accent – takes exception to being told (by her grandmother) that she is 'not Irish'.
If Eileen defines herself as 'British', says Muireann, she has no place questioning her great-granddaughter's self-identification as Irish. The nonagenarian grants that the young woman has 'got a point'.
This admission is not only spectacularly unexpected, it also gives rise to the first in a series of increasingly devastating revelations. Kelly's script is brilliantly observed, scalpel-sharp and bravely executed.
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Director Katie Posner (whose company Paines Plough is one of four co-producers of this world premiere) has a perfect grasp of the farce-like pace, the uproarious comedy and the deeply affecting pathos of this 80-minute play. Likewise designer Lily Arnold's immense, hyper-real set and sound designer Beth Duke's atmospheric soundscape.
The drama demands a complex combination of nuance, energy and bleak cartoonishness, and the fabulous cast delivers abundantly. Once again, it is an Irish play that burns brightest in the Traverse's Fringe programme.
Which is not to overlook the accomplishments of Flora Wilson Brown's deeply thoughtful piece The Beautiful Future Is Coming (Traverse, until August 24). Although it runs to only 90 minutes, the play cuts back-and-forth between the United States in the 19th century and the UK now and in an ecologically collapsed near future.
In the American scenario, Brown imagines the travails of Eunice Newton Foote (played by Phoebe Thomas), the pioneering scientist who made potentially path-breaking discoveries about the planet-warming potential of CO2. Had her discovery of the greenhouse effect not been sidelined and patronised – on misogynistic grounds – as the 'amateur' output of a mere 'hobbyist', it could, the play suggests more-than-plausibly, have played a key role in averting the current climate crisis.
Meanwhile, in present-day London, young marketing hotshots Claire (Nina Singh) and Dan (Jyuddah Jaymes) are heading towards a blissful family life in the Lake District when ecological breakdown bursts into their lives. Finally, later in the 21st-century – on a research station cut off by a long period of persistent tempestuous storms – we encounter young scientists Ana (Rosie Dwyer) and Malcolm (James Bradwell).
Each of the play's situations carries its own truth. Particularly poignant is the current (and, one imagines, future) dilemma for young people contemplating whether or not to have children in the face of environmental devastation.
In dramatic terms, as the work moves back-and-forward in time, one can't help but wonder if each of the scenarios – especially the Newton Foote storyline – wouldn't benefit from being a full play in itself. Nevertheless – although Brown's chosen structure is, inevitably, somewhat schematic – one understands and respects her decision to combine all three narratives.
There are – in director Nancy Medina's nicely wrought production for Bristol Old Vic – fine performances across the piece (including from Matt Whitchurch as Newton Foote's supportive husband, John, a fictionalisation of the scientist's spouse Elisha Foote). Designer Aldo Vázquez's sets are appropriately minimal and ingeniously adaptable to the demands of the play.
Brown's three-in-one drama is necessarily frightening. It is not an overdue warning about climate chaos so much as a heartfelt cry and an urging, not only to action, but also to human solidarity.