Fringe theatre reviews: Trans People Are Awful | Foriegner | R/evolution(s) | (No) Refunds | PrimeTime + more
A confrontational solo show about the fear and mistrust directed towards the trans community is superbly written and fiercely challenging, while an interactive game show that makes jokes about hanging our critic succeeds only in destroying itself – our latest Fringe theatre round-up
THEATRE
Trans People Are Awful ★ ★ ★ ★
Pleasance Courtyard (Venue 33) until 31 August
Foriegner ★ ★ ★
Summerhall (Venue 26) until 31 August
The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice; or so they used to say, back in the days when getting on the right side of history seemed simple.
On this year’s Fringe, though, there is a new generation responding to the world’s recent plunge towards moral chaos and brutalism in ways that recall the wrecking-ball absurdism of the years between 1918 and 1933 - complete with Artaud’s theatre of blood and cruelty - more than the campaigning radicalism of the 1960 or 70s.
In Trans People Are Awful at the Pleasance Courtyard, for example, trans actor and theatre-maker Ros Watt responds to the recent climate of hate, fear and mistrust against trans people not with resistance or denial but with gut-churning caricature, developed into a compelling one-hour solo show.
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
His character is a trans man, living on a remote farm in Aberdeenshire, who decides to acquire the right equipment for life as a man by killing strangers he meets in the street, and lopping off their organs, which he keeps in Kilner jars around his squalid barn.
This deranged project is going well, so far as our anti-hero is concerned, until the day when he picks up and slaughters a student who isn’t what they appear to be. This leads to a sudden and sober moral reckoning, movingly conveyed by Ros Watt in the show’s final minutes. And like every other vivid scene in this fiercely challenging show – co-produced by Beth Sitek and Ros Watt with Camden People’s Theatre – it’s superbly written and observed by Watt himself, a writer of lurid imagination, and tremendous storytelling skill.
If Ros Watt leans towards the theatre of blood, Sohrab Haghverdi at Summerhall is every inch the clown and absurdist his Fringe listing promises. In his deliberately mis-spelled show Foriegner, he reflects on his experience as an Iranian living in exile in the United States with a wild, angry and chaotic abandon, leaving his audience wondering whether he is more enraged by the testicular cancer he suffered in childhood (which he reflects by unleashing dozens of bright plastic balls across the stage), or by the current plight of the Iranian people under theocratic rule, and the racism experienced by Iranian exiles in the west.
The show has two climactic moments; one in which – in a bid to be recognised as a ground-breaking artist, and thereby to win residence in the States – he urinates into a bottle in front of the audience, and then proceeds to drink his own piss, and the other in which he yells at the pitch of his lungs about the infuriating moral complacency of western liberals who won’t support Trump’s bombing of Iran.
Instead of coming across as transgressive genius, though, he mainly just appears traumatised; in a vivid and unsettling show that wants, understandably enough, to shock us out of our comfortable western lives – but that still seems unsure how best to administer that shock, or what would count as success. Joyce McMillan
R/evolution(s) ★★★
Dance Base (Venue 22) until 30 August
For over 60 years, the Japanese dance theatre form of butoh has brought both playfulness and grotesquery to audiences. Everything has to evolve eventually, however, and choreographer Conan Amok has positioned himself at the vanguard of modern butoh.
Having studied sculpture at university, then trained at renowned butoh company Dairakudakan, Amok approaches the artform from two angles. The result is visually arresting, with subtle yet effective lighting, stage and costume design. But the dance, although executed with technical excellence, is a little hard-going. With a nod to the past, the four women have painted white faces and move with a hyper-slow intensity that’s rooted in tradition. Each curve of the spine, stretch of the limbs, or turn of the head is performed with absolute control.
Aside from Amok’s desire for the form to evolve, the show’s title also refers to the two meanings of ‘revolution’: turning around, and seeking change. There’s an anger to the dancers’ delivery that does indeed feel revolutionary, but the vocal calls and grunts do little to serve their aim. R/evolution(s) may be looking to the future, but some of the arresting, powerful nature of traditional butoh seems to have been lost along the way. Kelly Apter
THEATRE
(No) Refunds ★
Gilded Balloon Patter House (Venue 24) until 31 August
It loses a star at the start for offering me, the “Scotsman reviewer who’s in tonight”, a metaphorical noose with which to hang myself. But, tonight, what could be a reasonable interactive game show about the price of art is mainly interested in killing itself. To achieve this, it enlists audience member Quentin Smith who, in round one, draws a picture of me as a short bald man because this is what he thinks “the Scotsman critic” looks like.
The drawing particularly delights an American called Chase who, having cackled loudly at the idea of a noose around my neck, after describing himself with the word “empathy”, buys it at auction for £31. A post-show speech about the importance of mental health is commendable. It’s a shame that Tiffany Gold (aka Katy Murphy) and friends subscribe to it selectively. Sally Stott
THEATRE
PrimeTime ★ ★
theSpace on the Mile (Venue 39) until 29 August
A student cast throws itself into PrimeTime with evident camaraderie, following a man trapped inside a television world, cycling through genres – sitcom, crime drama, a Christmas special disrupted by a military exercise – via quick costume changes and rewinds. The premise is inventive: he’s pulled into the screen with no say in how he got there or whether he can leave, treating the audience as home viewers, remote in hand. Its riffs on TV tropes and adverts are well-chosen, but the show leans on recognisability rather than pushing its own absurdist logic, and an abrupt ending weakens a fun, fast-paced hour. Josephine Balfour-Oatts
THEATRE
July 15th to…. ★
theSpace @ Niddry Street (Venue 9) until 29 August
A young Chinese artist is stuck, struggling with her mental health in London, and unable to attend her beloved grandmother’s funeral. Hope comes in the form of an art agent who takes an interest in her work and respite comes with a scuba diving trip which brings temporary calm. But these positive forces are jumbled up with halting portrayals of isolation and turmoil in a fragmented, diaristic presentation, further hampered by poor theatrical devices, which fails to create an engaging narrative or latch on to any meaningful exploration of what it means to wrestle with chaotic mental illness. 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
Comments
Want to join the conversation? Please or to comment on this article.