Traverse
Theatre, Edinburgh
Four
stars
If
genius steals, how do you split up the loot? That’s just one of the questions
that Kieran Hurley pins to the wall in his new play for the Traverse, which dissects
both the culture and class wars alongside the eternal contradictions of both. Under-achieving
Edinburgh writer Libby is about to make the ultimate dramatic gesture when she
is saved by Declan, a teenage boy from the housing schemes with a raw artistic
talent that enables Libby to get her mojo back. Everything, alas, is material,
especially Declan’s life.
The psycho-sexual
tug of love that follows makes for the perfect final gift from the Traverse’s outgoing
artistic director Orla O’Loughlin. Her production takes a daring leap through
the fourth wall of Kai Fischer’s framed black-box set to question who exactly
owns the stories that shape us. Stage-directions are projected onto this
interior, both from Hurley’s actual play as well as Libby’s soon-to-be-devastating
work-in-progress.
Lorn
Macdonald and Neve McIntosh bring enough dynamic light and shade to Declan and
Libby’s increasingly ferocious sparring, so things never feel heavy-handed in what
initially looks like a gender-swapped Pygmalion or Educating Rita. Driven by
Kim Moore’s burbling electronic score, Hurley takes things further, so the play
becomes a wrestling match for the soul of a divided society in which art imitates
life imitating art in a safe space where everyone likes a bit of rough.
While
there are moments you wonder what any of this means outside the theatre world’s
concerned but cosy bubble that those both making and watching the show exist
inside, this is at least part of the play’s point. If a real-life Declan gate-crashed
a real-life Libby’s moment of triumph as he does here, chances are he’d be out
on his ear within seconds. Such are the terminally unresolved challenges Hurley
raises in a show where every person in the room becomes complicit in using
Declan and Libby’s stories for our own thrill-seeking ends.
The Herald, December 7th 2018
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