by Laura Kressly

In the Wes Anderson-esque, Scomodo Hotel looking out over the Edinburgh skyline, Aaron arrives for his first day of work. The row of identical, pastel doors foreshadows the farce that is about to commence, but this new play by Isobel McArthur uses the genre as a vehicle for a more complex story. Unfortunately this ambitious play tries to do way too much.

The modern hotel relies on technology for everything: the room numbers are displayed on screens, guests use buzzers to summon staff, and in-room displays welcome the guests. However, this system is on the fritz, the walls are paper thin and there’s something wrong with the lights. It’s fitting that the translation of the Italian ‘scomodo’ is ‘uncomfortable’. Whilst Aaron stumbles down dark corridors trying to avoid irate guests and find the staff training room, a mysterious encounter starts an obsessive quest to find the voice’s owner. This leads to amusing misunderstandings and miscommunications between him and his quirky coworkers.

Though Aaron (Ali Watt) is the star of the show, he’s far less interesting than the women who get less stage time. In particular, there’s the immensely intelligent Colombian woman, Yolanda (Betty Valencia), who the manager thinks is stupid. There’s also earnest opera buff Amy (Karen Fishwick) who works there because the hotel is reputedly haunted by ghosts of those who died in a fire that gutted the building’s previous incarnation, an opera house. Aaron significantly grows over the story, but at his core he is a bumbling, annoying man undeserving of his position as protagonist. The other actors multi-role, but they are shortchanged by not being able to explore their characters with as much depth.

That said, McArthur excels at individual moments’ dialogue. Some are genuinely funny and clever. But like her characters who are often distracted by outrageous guests and their unreasonable demands, she focuses almost as much time on these brief but numerous interactions as she does on the primary plot line. The overall effect, though polished by exceptional scenography by Ana Inés Jabares-Pita, and some stunning singing from the entire cast, is a lack of focus and clarity about what the script is trying to say.

The Grand Old Opera House Hotel runs through 27 August.

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