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Though This Be Madness

The Studio, Capital Theatres, Edinburgh

Three stars


A cuddly toy perched on the seat beside you is a welcome companion for audience members watching Skye Loneragan’s new solo work drawn from the chaotic playpen of her mind. The furry friends in question become the equivalent of a comfort blanket to cling to during Loneragan’s 65-minute free-associative meditation on sanity, madness and the family. These domestic meanderings seem to have been sired by a post-natal fever dream that reflects Loneragan’s own sleep-deprived voyage into motherhood, as assorted hand-me-down neuroses bring up sense memories of madnesses past. 

 

In what could have been the frustrated dramatic equivalent of throwing her toys out of the pram, Loneragan marks her low attention span leaps into the void with Shakespeare references aplenty. Each moment is broken up by way of a series of projected post-it notes designed by Roddy Simpson, with Mairi Campbell’s nursery rhyme style folk soundtrack bubbling into the mix at points.

 

On tour as part of Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival, Loneragan’s mash-up of imagined memoir is a complex and contrary everyday fantasia, in which taking care of both the self and others across several generations can be a creatively messy business.

 

https://www.mhfestival.com/events/edinburgh-lothian/846-though-this-be-madness

 

The List, June 2022

 

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