Summerhall,
Edinburgh
Three
stars
What
to do if your leading lady passes away shortly before a performance? As is always
the case with theatrical etiquette, the show must go on and you bring on the
understudy, even if it’s a different species. That’s the back-story to this
one-off Edinburgh International Science Festival date for a work-in-progress
from biologist and some-time stand-up, Simon Watt, which aims to dissect one of
modern literature’s seemingly darkest creations.
Over
fifty-five minutes, Watt and a ukulele-playing accomplice first act out a lo-fi
version of Franz Kafka’s story about down-trodden office worker Gregor Samsa’s
transformation into what is usually translated as a dung beetle. This is
something that novelist, entomologist and Kafka scholar Vladimir Nabokov took serious
issue with. With this in mind, it’s perhaps fortunate that this pocket-sized
contemporisation featuring a Zero Hours contracted Greg includes a real live
cockroach rather than the unfortunately deceased stag beetle who preceded it.
The audience sees this in projected close-ups filmed live by Watt from outside
a dolls house type construction.
Once
Greg comes to a sticky end with a whole lot more metaphorical fun than is
usually found in Kafka’s work, the second half of the show throws Nabokov’s
linguistic pedantry into an entertaining and at times off-the-cuff mix of pop
science cabaret. This results in various six-legged creatures being passed around
the audience for inspection. All of which makes for quite a show-and-tell, as assorted
creepy-crawlies are accorded due respect while giving some educational insight
into the secret life of the ‘vile and verminous insect’ of Kafka’s opening
paragraph. There’s still some way to go yet, and Nabokov is crying out to have more
of a say, but this might just be a monster show in the making.
The Herald, April 3rd 2018
ends
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