Fringe theatre reviews: Dracula: Lucy’s Dream | BURN | Emma and Warren in the Garden of Eden + more

Dracula: Lucy’s Dream ★★★★★

Pleasance at EICC (Venue 150) until 29 August

The beauty in adapting a well-worn story is that in the right hands it shines.

It’s remarkable that Dracula’s first victim in England, Lucy Westerna, has returned to prominence in some recent adaptations of the gothic tale. She’s previously been frequently sidelined in favour of Mina as writers and director’s try and overlay a romance on top of Stoker’s novel which rarely sits comfortably (Luc Besson is the most recent culprit).

If anything, Dracula is about predatory male sexual behaviour and Lucy is the constant reminder that the character is a monster rather than a tragic hero.

This consistently visually stunning fantasia from French-Norwegian theatre company Plexus Polaire mixes puppetry, movement and sheer technical virtuosity to reposition Lucy at the centre of her own tragedy. While their acclaimed production of Moby Dick at The Barbican was a large scale spectacle, this is necessarily a more intimate affair (it’s scarcely credible that there only five performers/puppeteers) it’s no less visually mesmerising.

Reimagined as a nightmare as Lucy slips under Dracula’s spell, this slips from one startling image to the next with a fevered dream logic that doesn’t require dialogue and resists rationality.

What’s particularly refreshing about artistic director Yngvild Aspeli’s vision is that it is unafraid to go right to the very edge of limits of the fantastique — and push it a little further. Horror can become petrified by good taste and this continually takes risks by portraying their life-size puppet Dracula transforming into a giant spider on one occasion. Dracula’s canine form can appear oddly personable at first but much less so when it’s holding a crying newborn infant in its jaws.

The startling puppetry blurs the line between the living and the undead as Lucy begins to succumb to spell of vampirism and become a mannequin herself, weightless as her personality splinters and multiplies. You can see it as a representation of trauma, addiction or psychosis if you wish but this spellbinding production never loses sight of the fact that the enemy Lucy faces is simply evil itself. Rory Ford

Enjoying The Scotsman's coverage of the Edinburgh festivals? For just £2 a month you can get unlimited access to scotsman.com plus 2-for-1 Fringe tickets. For details visit www.scotsman.com/subscriptions

BURN ★★★★

The Vault at Paradise in The Vault (Venue 29) until 15 August

BURN is staged as a heated exchange between Mary I, the first queen of England, and Thomas Cranmer, archbishop to Henry VIII and Edward VI. The latter is begging for mercy; he has been tried for treason, and Mary is the only one capable of sparing him from a gruesome death.

As the show unfolds, however, it becomes clear that Cranmer’s fate was sealed the moment he approved the divorce between Henry VIII and Mary’s beloved mother, Katharine of Aragon. In the ensuing game of cat and mouse, the archbishop tries in vain to defend his slights against Mary as she deftly turns his previous words against him.

BURN isn’t the first show at the Fringe to explore the rich inner lives of notorious Tudor women. The musical SIX debuted at the 2017 Fringe to critical acclaim, redefining the legacy of Henry VIII’s wives beyond the catchy epithet “Divorced, Beheaded, Died.” While the two shows couldn’t be more different - there are no mentions of dating apps in BURN, for one - the general themes of misogyny and powerlessness are woven throughout both to great effect.

BURN arguably has a harder story to sell (none of Henry VIII’s wives ordered the deaths of over 200 Protestants, to my knowledge), but it does so convincingly; while Mary may not be anyone’s idea of a #girlboss, we come away with a more nuanced understanding of her motivations and beliefs.

The script and performances are strong enough that some of the other rhetorical devices deployed - including a large blackboard upon which Mary scribbles her eventual alias, “Bloody Mary,” - feel superfluous. Frankie Hyde and Kelvin Giles are more than capable of carrying the very human story themselves.

In the wrong hands, BURN could fall victim to its own premise - an overwrought history lecture, delivered by unduly passionate teachers. Instead, we’re treated to a tightly-paced and informative exploration of an otherwise-enigmatic historical figure. If you have even a passing interest in history, you’ll come away satisfied. Ariane Branigan

Blackjack! (and other ways to get lucky) in Your Parents’ Basement ★★★

Greenside @ Riddles Court (Venue 16) until 15 August

Writer and performer Tom Stilwell draws on personal experience for this dark comedy and cautionary tale about online gambling.

About to turn 30, Stilwell is drowning in debt after a tech start-up went south, living in his parents’ basement in Staten Island with his boyfriend and spending his nights gambling in a Latvian crypto casino.

When the show begins, he appears to be filming a TV commercial for his online course Beginner Bets to Beat the House, but soon the fantasy begins to crack. We learn he has loved gambling since he played his dad’s buddies at poker when he was seven, and he has the gambler’s unquenchable optimism that surely a big win is just around the corner.

Stilwell’s delivery is pacey and often very funny: living in your parents’ basement is, he says “at 25, a cute little failure to launch, at 30, more like Challenger”. The show benefits from Katie Devin Orenstein’s astute direction and some creative use of props to build avatars for Stilwell’s opponents. There are even some Blackjack tips for anyone who might be interested. Susan Mansfield

READ MORE: ‘It’s really exposing just now.’ Telling queer stories at the Fringe

Emma and Warren in the Garden of Eden ★★★

Greenside @ Riddles Court (Venue 16) until 15 August

This two-hander is naturalistic and precise – scripted and performed with fine-tooth precision – and the intimacy of the space, with its handful of audience members, feels less like a piece of theatre than an episode of a serial drama.

Emma and Warren sit on a bench spooning ice cream into their mouths, hands resting so close they almost meet. “Where did all the whimsy go?” they ask, recalling childhood senses of wonder – she once believed in God, he in the army. There is ease and fluency to them at first: she’s a teacher from an unwealthy, unwell family, he’s a performer with money he refuses to touch.

An a cappella rendition of Townes Van Zandt’s I’ll Be Here in the Morning and a kiss precede a revelation, and a conversation about a shared hypothetical future that is dashed – tipping into the play’s core subject: who gets to be an artist, and whether that’s really a question of talent or resources.

A coda forces a before-and-after shape the material doesn’t require. By the end, though, Emma and Warren have swapped seats. They are on the same bench, but whimsy retreats further into the past until they are poles apart. Josephine Balfour-Oatts

1. Empty Sky ★★★

studio at C ARTS | C venues | C aquila (Venue 21) until 16 August

A small girl has allegedly been carried off by an eagle. In the aftermath, two reporters chase down unsuspecting residents of the affected town, explaining through rictus grins that they want to collect stories about the event.

The inhabitants (played by a truly excellent ensemble cast) divulge snippets of memory - be they sad, comical or irrelevant - among which is the disturbing revelation that they killed all birds indiscriminately after the incident, out of revenge.

Although the script appears frustratingly elliptical at first glance, there are many astute observations woven into 1. Empty Sky. It transpires that, despite the furore over the girl’s disappearance, no one actually knew her very well - perhaps a wry nod to The Virgin Suicides, and the fact that victims are the first to be forgotten in a media circus.

We are consistently kept at arms’ length from the characters - no doubt a deliberate choice, but one which leaves us a little too alienated from the show’s subject matter. Much like real life, 1. Empty Sky concludes before it ties up its loose ends: we aren’t even told whether an eagle was the perpetrator in the first place. But ultimately, it might not matter: after all, the birds are still dead. Ariane Branigan

The Inverted Realm ★★

Ivy Studio at Greenside @ George Street (Venue 236) until 15 August

Loosely based around Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s painting Netherlandish Proverbs, The Inverted Realm follows the moral enlightenment of a hardcore capitalist who is Scroogelike in his commitment to hustle culture.

We watch as he falls into an alternate dimension, forced to reckon with increasingly disconcerting villagers who echo and distort his values.

The cast are all excellent physical performers, lending a real sense of unreality to the small space. However, The Inverted Realm spreads itself just a little too thin; it’s hard to be invested in a character’s growth when their journey is shrouded in absurdism, metaphors and idioms. Ariane Branigan

Waving ★★

theSpace @ Surgeons Hall (Venue 53) until 15 August

This gentle drama of everyday dysfunctional relationships within an artistic family is more halting than haunting.

Mum is a painter, favoured son Miles a wouldbe songwriter, and undervalued daughter Lena is attempting to work through her memories in a creative writing class. Scenes shift back and forward in time, dangling then pulling at loose threads, while the debilitating influences of dementia and drug addiction cast a shadow over any chance of domestic stability.

Dogs In Wellies Theatre Company aim to spotlight actors/writers over the age of 50 but the rather blank rendering of the unnamed mother is a missed opportunity to paint a more vibrant portrait of life with a creative parent. Fiona Shepherd

The Scotsman’s arts newsletter is now sent twice a week - subscribe today

Enjoying the Arts & Culture journalism on scotsman.com? Make it easier to find by selecting us as a preferred Google source

Want the latest Scottish headlines sent directly to your phone? Sign up to our new WhatsApp channel here