14/08/24

Zoo Playground 2, Edinburgh

When we enter the performance space, we can hardly fail to notice Sam Ipema, lying stretched out on a podium, seemingly fast asleep. She’s surrounded by a series of miniature television screens, upon which random images from her childhood are playing, as if granting us access to her dreams. 

But then she wakes up and starts to tell us her life story, all about a young girl who grows up with her parents. They are present, providing comments from the TV screens. We also hear from her adopted brother who has Downs Syndrome and is very fond of Batman. As Sam grows older, she becomes obsessed with soccer and seizes every opportunity to practice the sport, thinking that perhaps one day she’ll be a star player…

And then Sam’s narrative is rudely interrupted by the arrival of ‘Annie’ (Eleanor House), a bright buzzy young woman clad in a glitzy pink outfit. She’s playing a tuneless rendition of Also Sprach Zarathustra – on a trombone – and she seems intent on wrecking everything that Sam has so carefully set up.

But ‘Annie’ is just the name that Sam has given to her aneurism – the one she discovered years back, quite by accident, the one that she endured surgery on, but which still hides deep within her brain and could prove fatal at any moment…

Dear Annie, I Hate You is a wonderfully inventive and cleverly-assembled slice of true experience, by turns funny, profound and – at one particular point – very challenging. Those of a delicate disposition should note that this show offers the opportunity to literally look inside Ipema’s brain (via a screen, obviously), but I want to stress that those too squeamish to watch it are given ample opportunity to either close their eyes or leave the room until that part is over. I choose to stay and am riveted by what I see.

The performance space at Zoo Playground I is quite compact and I’ve rarely seen such a modest stage used to such great effect. Hats off to director James Meteyard, who manages to have Ipema and House moving through the clutter with ease, interacting, arguing, fighting – even playing a game of table tennis. The simple but utterly practical props work a treat, light cables pulsing and flashing to accentuate the action, and there’s one bit of business – which I won’t spoil – that actually makes me gasp out loud.

Ipema is a confident and relaxed narrator, while House proves the perfect foil, her polar opposite. Watching the two of them interact is both entertaining and affecting.

More than anything else, I’m impressed by Ipema’s courage, the way that she has met the daunting experience of an aneurism full on, turning it into one of the most thought-provoking shows I have seen at this year’s Fringe.

5 stars

Philip Caveney