Meri Suonenlahti

Little Women

24/10/25

Bedlam Theatre, Edinburgh

First, a plea to the good people of Bedlam: for the love of all little women, good wives and little men, PLEASE stop leaving the fire exit door open during your productions. Christopher Columbus! It’s cold enough in this unheated theatre without letting in a blast of late October air! I wasn’t expecting to identify quite so closely with Amy after her fall through the ice, “shivering, dripping and crying” until she’s wrapped in blankets in front of a fire.

But, to quote Louisa May Alcott, “there is always light behind the clouds” and EUTC’s Little Women, directed by Lauryn McGuire and Meri Suonenlahti, is a case in point: a bright, sparky production, perfectly encapsulating the wholesome vivacity of the nineteenth-century New England classic.

Not a lot happens in Little Women – the coming-of-age novel is character rather than plot-driven – so the play’s success relies on the actors’ embodiment of the four sisters. Liv De Pury excels as Alcott’s alter-ego, Jo, the irrepressible second child, who rails against the constraints of her gender and burns with ambition to become a writer. De Pury imbues the popular heroine with sass and drive, creating an engaging protagonist for us to root for. Sophie Davis’s Meg is a softer, sweeter young woman than Jo, but no less likeable, her warmth and kind nature almost palpable. Elsie Frith, as Beth, captures the girl’s gentleness and fragility, while Rachel McLaren shines as Amy, the melodramatic baby of the March family, eliciting much laughter from tonight’s audience.

The set (managed by Azalea Drace) works well, making the most of the small stage. A raised area represents Jo’s garret, with the rest of the performance space given over to the March family’s living room. The trusty green Chesterfield is back (it’s made an appearance in almost every show we’ve see in this venue), its period style especially appropriate for this piece. I also like the fact that the sisters actually play the old upright piano, rather than relying on recorded sound.

The costumes (managed by Millie Franchi) are similarly effective, making clever use of corsets to convert simple modern skirts into clear approximations of 1800s fashion.

The production as a whole works well. Dylan Kaeuper (Laurie) and Theodore Casimir-Lambert (John Brooke) provide excellent support as the love interests, while Roni Kane (Marmee), Hunter King (Father) and Rufus Goodman (Old Mr Laurence) are all impressively convincing as characters much older than themselves. Watching events play out, I feel transported back into the cocoon of my childhood, curled up in bed reading about these faraway adolescents and their travails.

I can’t urge you to buy a ticket because there’s only one performance left and I know that it’s sold out. But I can congratulate EUTC on another delightful production, allowing this good wife to indulge in a little nostalgia and leave the theatre with a great big smile on her face.

4.4 stars

Susan Singfield

Angels in America: Part One – The Millennium Approaches

08/11/24

Bedlam Theatre, Edinburgh

New York playwright Tony Kushner’s 1991 “fantasia on national themes” is notoriously complex, but we’ve come to expect EUTC to tackle ambitious projects head-on, so we’re not surprised to learn that they’ve chosen this seminal play for their latest production. We’re excited to see what Gen Z will bring to this play about their Gen X predecessors, as they struggle to deal with a deadly epidemic, populist prejudice and rampant capitalism. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose… I’m guessing they can relate.

El Mair plays Prior Walter, a young man with a recent AIDS diagnosis and a distraught boyfriend. Louis (Leo Odgers) doesn’t want to deal with the realities of illness: the puke, the shit, the spectre of death. Prior is devastated by Louis’s abandonment, and retreats ever further into a fantasy world, ably assisted by the cocktail of drugs he has to take to manage his condition.

Meanwhile, Louis’s colleague, Joe (Will Grice), is facing demons of his own: his Mormon faith doesn’t allow him to acknowledge his homosexuality and remaining in the closet is killing him. But when he tries to come out to his mother, Hannah (Ava Vaccari, who excels throughout this production in a number of roles), she refuses to listen. “This conversation didn’t happen.” Of course, the secret also has a devastating impact on his wife, Harper (Natalia Campbell), who is addicted to Valium and, like Prior, plagued by visions.

As if Joe weren’t already dealing with enough pressure, his mentor, sleazy lawyer Roy Cohn (Hunter King) – the only real-life character in this fictional world – is determined to put Joe’s shiny good-boy persona to use, finding him a job in Washington DC, close to the seat of power. (“I make presidents,” he says, King’s already chilling performance heightened by the wider context, the combination of Trump’s re-election and Abi Abbasi’s recent film, The Apprentice, which details Cohn’s influence on the young Donald.)

Directed by Meri Suonenlahti and Andrew More, Angels in America is a triumph. The student cast are more than up to it, imbuing their characters with heart as well as humour; there’s some real intelligence at play here. The naturalistic performance style works well, emphasising the strangeness of the more fantastical sequences, such as Harper and Prior’s dream meeting. Campbell and Mair, both talented actors, are especially compelling in this scene, their fragility writ large as they stare at each other ‘through a glass darkly’. Louis Handley’s set design mirrors these contrasts, the prosaic heaviness of the bed and desk and sofa juxtaposed by dreamily-lit pastel backdrops, which move on casters between each scene, so that the landscape subtly shifts and dips, illuminating the characters’ growing disorientation. Full use is made of the theatre’s history as a former chapel too, the huge blacked-out window above the stage lit to suggest the angels’ presence.

It’s astounding what EUTC manage to achieve with their limited budget: the final scene in particular is a coup de théâtre (I won’t say any more; I won’t spoil the surprise). Suffice to say, it’s worth bundling up in your winter woollies and heading to Bedlam to catch this one. Three and a half hours fly by like the eponymous angel. I only wish they were doing Part Two: Perestroika as well.

4.8 stars

Susan Singfield