Traverse Theatre

Edinburgh Festival Fringe: Lost Lear, Consumed, and The Beautiful Future is Coming at the Traverse Theatre

by Laura Kressly

As the population ages and continues to be threatened by underfunding and lack of adequate resources, quality care for elderly people is under threat. The acclaimed Irish play Lost Lear by Dan Colley challenges this by providing a narrative of hope. Safely tucked away in a care home, Joy (Venetia Bowe) re-lives the best moments of her life over and over again. Her care team have recreated the rehearsal process for her acclaimed turn in King Lear, which keeps her calm and content as dementia ravages her brain. Joy’s experience is both tragically beautiful and inspirational – may we all have this depth of experience as our minds slip below the horizon.

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Adults, Edinburgh Festival Fringe

by Laura Kressly

Zara is a fiercely intelligent sex worker who runs an Edinburgh brothel as part of a non-hierarchical cooperative. The canny business woman doesn’t seem like she’s rattled by much, until a new client turns out to be one of her former teachers. On top if this, her colleague that he requested is running late due to childcare issues. The dark comedy by Kieran Hurley examines a tangled web of contemporary issues, particularly capitalism, parenting and familial relationships, work, and aging.

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The Grand Old Opera House Hotel, Edinburgh Festival Fringe

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.

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This Is Paradise, Edinburgh Festival Fringe

by Laura Kressly

Kate is a 30-something woman in Belfast expecting her first child with her husband, Brendy. At the same time, Northern Ireland and its political parties have announced that peace is finally coming. Though Kate and her country should be looking forward, she is troubled by recurring abdominal pain and memories from her past that threaten the peace she has made for herself.

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On the Exhale, Edinburgh Festival Fringe

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By Laura Kressly

There are guns everywhere in America. Real ones, and pictures of them, hidden and overtly displayed. This constant threat of violence gives the unnamed uni lecturer and mum in this monologue nightmares and anxiety attacks. She awaits the day when a male student takes issue with his grades, or the course content, or anything else that threatens his masculinity and barges into her office or classroom and guns her down.

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How to Disappear, Traverse Theatre

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by guest critic Liam Rees

Initially How to Disappear seems to be a new addition to the classic, British State-of- the-Nation plays in its searing critique of the government’s welfare policy. But Morna Pearson has great fun in turning the genre on its head with a twist that is so central to the play that I can’t avoid including spoilers.

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Our Fathers, Traverse Theatre

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by guest critic Liam Rees

Think about your parents, or a parental figure. How have they impacted who you are now? Whether positive or negative some mark will inevitably and irrevocably remain.

Now consider the effect of growing up in a religious home, specifically as the child of a minister. The stereotypes that come to mind are either that they’ll dutifully keep the faith, join the ministry or violently rebel, like Nietzsche proclaiming ‘God is dead’ or worse, put those oratory skills to use in the theatre. Performers, and children of reverends, Rob Drummond and Nicholas Bone seem to exist somewhere in between the stereotypes.

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Jury Play, Traverse Theatre

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by guest critic Liam Rees

Grid Iron and the Traverse Theatre’s new co-production Jury Play is a play of two halves with rather mixed results. Based on Dr Jenny Scott’s research into jury members’ experiences and how to improve them, director Ben Harrison and writer, Dr Jenny Scott, have decided that the best way to bring these issues to life is to cast the audience as the jury in a fictional murder trial.

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