Fringe theatre reviews: Selkie: Past, Present, Future | Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities + more
Our latest round-up of Fringe theatre reviews includes an important and gloriously unbound allegory for trans experience in Scotland, some philosophical musings within a complex metaverse, and a performance of Shakespearian epicness.
Selkie: Past, Present, Future ★★★★
Netherbow Theatre at Scottish Storytelling Centre (Venue 30) until 30 August
Fringe First winner Niall Moorjani brings three shows to the Festival this year – and this stripped back tale of selkies entirely holds its own. In collaboration with storyteller and folk cellist Ailsa Dixon, Moorjani paints a tale of selkies across three timelines in an allegory for trans experience in Scotland.
We are brought into the duo’s story to the tune of Chappell Roan, as Moorjani tells us what to expect and promises that if we don’t know what a selkie is, we will soon. Both Moorjani and Dixon are barefoot, smiling and effortless as they insist that even though we are working on three timelines, it is their job as storytellers to bring us to a point of cohesion at the end. They certainly do.
A selkie of the past longs to be brought into the fold of mythical shapeshifting, a selkie of the present finds themselves far from their origins, and a selkie of the future, who has gone into hiding after a far-right political party finds power, reconsiders their shed skin.
With motifs threading through the three stories and Dixon’s stirring Orcadian songs providing an emotional bedrock, the audience knows exactly where we are, even if not where we’re going.
This is a show about transness in Scotland in a time of anti-trans sentiment. Importantly, its answer to this political climate doesn’t look outside of its own context – Scottish folklore about cycles of despair and hope, the salience of gathering and the shifting of the sea paint a picture of what trans life in Scotland could be. In a beat that brings this message home, Moorjani speaks of a selkie enjoying new waters on their skin, vibrant and existing – while “no one seems to mind”.
Soothing, evocative and gloriously unbound, Selkie: Past, Present, Future showcases a fruitful collaboration we hope to see again. Mika Morava
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Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities: A Toy Theater Atlas ★★★★
C ARTS | C venues | C alto (Venue 21) until 30 August
Boxes line a row of shelves, waiting to be presented by Matthew Gawryk and Dan Kerr-Hobert, two men in overalls who reveal what’s inside: the miniature model worlds of Italo Calvino’s novel Invisible Cities, each with its own logic, hierarchy and spatial dynamics.
Like more traditional built environment projects, it would benefit from paying more attention to the humans that might exist within what, here, is a complex metaverse with people reduced to “inhabitants’ at best.
Taking place on a table that is live filmed, it mimics the visual language of architectural design through tightly composed shots that replicate sections and plans.
The dialogue is dense, but once the overriding framework is revealed – a story in which the explorer Marco Polo reports back to an emperor, known as The Great Khan, on the mind-melting places he visits – the philosophical ideas behind the shape-shifting cities become easier to focus on.
A city “dispersed through music”, one that “throws itself away”, the juxtaposition of a city that is always changing versus one that never does, a city that expands on a revolving wheel, an unjust city inside a just one, an underground city filled with the dead copied from the one above: the invisible orders that sustain them all are revealed with technical precision.
Frankly, just one of these cities would be sufficient to build a play around, and the density of writing and the philosophical musings that fill each world is both the show’s appeal and its flaw.
But it’s an impressive piece that, within an hour, plants striking images in the mind, visualised by an intricate set on the stage that the audience, after then show, explore in closer proximity: giants inside a theatre inside a festival inside a world that we and all the other shows exist within. Sally Stott
My Oh My, Mr Dream ★★★
Paradise in The Vault (Venue 29) until 30 August
Billed as “a triptych exploring immortality at three different scales, from the cosmic to the technological to the domestic”, this one man-show is powered by a performance of Shakespearian epicness. Trapped in a cave under the George VI Bridge, the energy is strong, while the poetic stories elusive.
An intensive, singular actor with a bellowing voice, ‘Mr Dream’ speaks elusively through earnest but oblique monologues full of evocations of the landscape and nature.
“To be king, you must dream it,” it starts. Paranoid, he’s surrounded by rats, squeaking across the constant hum of a disquieting soundscape.
Dense and difficult to pin down, it’s elusive storytelling, philosophical rather than plot driven. Ivy grows, the wind blows, shoots of new plants form, and creatures roam. Then, we’re into a war where an enemy must be “clawed” from his kingdom, an “ear in a stone” mouse his only friend. The bleak haunting atmosphere of loss shifts to a storm and we’re swooping with the birds in the sky.
A device in which he hands out crystals seems to dictate which story comes next, but who knows. The drama needs more precision but is performed with such commitment that it carries things along, even if it’s not entirely clear where we are as the dense cluster of words and worlds orbit around us and him. Sally Stott
The Spy Network ★★★
Greenside @ Riddles Court (Venue 16) until 29 August
If there’s one thing that the Fringe is never short of it’s a change to see a play about Mary Queen of Scots. This one sets out to “tell her tale in her one true voice”.
Taking place during an imagined encounter between a beautifully berobed Mary and Barnaby Fulke, an actor, it gives a reenacted, densely described insight into the Babington plot that led to her being accused of treason and her ultimate downfall on executioner’s block, ominous and ever present at the back of the set throughout.
Laura Cordery’s set and costume design adds professional polish, as do performances from the cast, who play multiple roles, with Rachel Waters capturing the dignity of a Queen, as Mary, Livy Potter as servant who plays her likeable proxy, and Jamie Bremner as Falke who also captures the ‘spy master’ who orchestrates Mary’s downfall.
Writer Neil Edwards’ detailed script is weighed down with both historical information and speculation, to a point where this, at times, becomes the play’s driving force.
Cameron Naylor’s sound design tries to distract during the heaviest exposition, but this is unlikely to add clarity for an audience who aren’t familiar with Mary’s tale, which, in this instance, would benefit from some more character-based drama. Sally Stott
I Dreamt You Differently ★★
C ARTS | C venues | C aquila (Venue 21) until 30 August
Aspiring pop star Mariella sequesters herself in a country hotel in order to record the album which is going to be her big break. Her father Billy visits with good news of a similar watershed in his career but both are hiding the reality of their situation.
This debut show from Milk + Mallet is a quirky but stilted spin on shared grief and thwarted ambition, featuring a handful of songs which are as piecemeal as the wider work. The wouldbe cathartic musical climax falls short on emotional heft and instead father and daughter settle for being contented together in loserville. Fiona Shepherd
Happy ★★
Just The Tonic at The Mash House (Venue 288) until 30 August
There’s some strong acting, perhaps a bit too strong for the intimate venue, in this debut monologue about a frustrated Brooklyn-based actor auditioning for the role of the character Happy in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman while earnestly claiming how happy he is in a way that demonstrates that, clearly, he isn’t.
As a commentary on the frustrations of the industry, the barrage of emotions that exist behind this besuited, intensive and loudly spoken figure are strong, but circle around an uneven exploration of mental health that is never really given the opportunity to develop and, as a result, become simply an assault on the audience.
What is being happy? Both he and we are left to continue working it out. Sally Stott
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