F E S T I VA L T H E AT R E | Reviews
DETOUR: A SHOW ABOUT CHANGING YOUR MIND Life-affirming show from engaging ex-academic ●●●●●
Detour is a one-woman show from multidisciplinary performer Diana Dinerman, who quit her history PhD. As an ex-academic, it seems fitting that this performance is pitched as a faux lecture (with additional meditation and dance). The piece analyses life issues like listening to your body, dealing with struggles, the best (and worst) ways to make new beginnings and how to keep your identity intact throughout.
The setting for this show is minimal but the bare performance space is filled with the performer’s captivating presence. Dinerman uses thought-provoking anecdotes to speak frankly of her experiences and is quick to expose her bad behavioural patterns that are central to the show. At this point in her life, she is unapologetic for the mistakes she has made and has instead churned them into empowering parts of her personality.
Dinerman is a confident, intriguing and engaging performer
who delivers a quick-witted show at a racing pace, transporting the whole room to defining moments of her life with poetic flair. She is able to articulate ineffable emotions and sensations with such clarity that, in these moments, the show moves the audience and begins to feel like the self-help talk everybody in attendance genuinely needed. It examines feminist concerns with kick-ass style and tears apart social stereotypes with sophisticated ease. Dinerman's approach to these topics is far from typical, using dance to deconstruct matters like the silencing of the female body. This trailblazing piece ties everything together neatly before ending with a positive message about embracing life’s detours and rejecting its pressures. (Becki Crossley) n Underbelly Bristo Square, until 26 Aug (not 13), 2.35pm, £10–£11 (£9–£10).
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FOX Compassionate exploration of contemporary problems ●●●●● DROWNING Drama about four murderous nurses ●●●●●
EVERYTHING I SEE I SWALLOW Feminist ideas collide and combine in intimate aerialist piece ●●●●●
Katie Guicciardi’s script addresses a trinity of serious issues: homelessness, perinatal mental health and the impact of patriarchal neglect. A new mother, played with understated confidence by Guicciardi, finds herself isolated and obsessed with a homeless man who has taken up residence across from her home. With her husband increasingly absent and unsupportive, she deteriorates from a proud mum full of love for her child to a state of despair, with the metaphor of the fox, an urban predator known to have attacked babies, referring both to her depression and the threat of the outsider. The measured pace allows a convincing description of the mother’s anxiety and the progress of her anguish, and time for philosophical reflections on the relationship between homelessness and security. The weaving of the themes is not precise, and the three issues connect only vaguely. But everything is considered with an appropriate seriousness, revealing a compassionate exploration of a set of very contemporary problems. (Gareth K Vile) n Pleasance Courtyard, until 26 Aug (not 13), 11.30am, £9–£11 (£8–£10).
94 THE LIST FESTIVAL 7–14 Aug 2019
Jessica Ross’s debut play explores philosophical questions of mortality through the story of four Austrian nurses charged with the deaths of 49 patients in 1991. The play embarks upon an attempt to explain the actions of these women through a narrative that addresses as many moral conundrums as the nurses’ epic body count. This fusion of theatre, aerial rope work and Japanese bondage art (shibari) explores cross-generational ideas of feminism and what it means to own your body in the context of your own life. The definition of this differs greatly to the mother-daughter duo central to the piece.
The stage is simply set: white bathtubs are dimly The daughter (Maisie Taylor) has struggled since a
lit with blue light, and this stark set-up magnifies the stirring performances of the play’s small cast of four. The effort and energy of the actors is sadly unsupported by the absence of any exposition. The plot is continually distracted by new concepts, as relationships rise, fall and then take jarring U-turns, so that the play fails to construct a convincing argument for these nurses’ motives. As a result, Drowning fails to achieve what it sets out to do. The script is nonetheless unsettling, framed by a series of monologues from each nurse. These moments of atmospheric clarity and haunting self- confession are, however, interrupted by scenes which lack as much depth or sense. Overall, a show that lets too many ideas drown what is an eerie and deeply affecting premise. (Rachel Baker) n Pleasance Courtyard, until 26 Aug (not 12), 2.30pm, £12 (£11).
young age to own her beauty and to feel her body is her own and doesn’t belong to those who look upon it. She finds solace in shibari, an erotic art that allows her to reclaim her sexual and physical identity. To her, this is empowering and feminist; to her mother (Tamsin Shasha), who discovers this through Instagram, this is overt, hypersexualised and bordering on pornography. Aerialism requires the characters to have complete
and utter control of their bodies and the blend of performance styles is utilised to forceful effect throughout. Rope scenes appear both effortless and exhausting; much like the seemingly unsolvable conflict at hand, and the chemistry between the two is transfixing and intimate as they work to iterate their perspectives on femininity. (Becki Crossley) n Summerhall , until 25 Aug (not 12, 19), 6pm, £13 (£11).