05/08/24

Pleasance Courtyard (Upstairs), Edinburgh

As soon as we note that Paper Swans is a Flabbergast production, we know we need to see it. Two of their previous shows, Swell Mob and The Tragedy of Macbeth, are among the most memorable pieces we’ve ever seen at the Fringe, and we’ve seen a lot. We know that – whatever else – Paper Swans is sure to be both experimental and innovative.

We’re not wrong. Written by and co-starring Vyte Garriga, this is a surreal piece depicting a young woman in a park at night, obsessively making the titular paper swans, while a security guard (Daniel Chrisostomou) urges her to leave.

Like most absurdist theatre, the structure is cyclical, reminiscent of a recurring dream, the characters destined to repeat the same encounter over and over. Ambiguous imagery takes precedence over coherent narrative or plot, and we’re left to ponder the possible meanings. Indeed, we spend the whole walk home doing exactly that.

The performances are highly stylised. Garriga, clad in a white leotard and tutu, resembles the origami swans she’s folding; her movement and gestures are like a ballet in slow-mo. Indeed, there are overt references to Swan Lake – to Odette, Odile and Siegfried – as well as to famous ballerinas from the past. Chrisostomou is more clown-like, his exaggerated physicality at first wonderfully comic and then desperately sad. Director Simon Gleave’s choreography is so precise and disciplined that every moment is intense, heightened to the nth degree. There is no let-up here. The hour flashes by and, as the actors take their bows, I realise that I’ve been holding my breath. I don’t know for how long.

What is Paper Swans about? I’m not entirely sure. Garriga’s website tells us that it draws on her personal experience as a woman from a post-Soviet country (Lithuania), “exploring the trauma of oppression, the price of freedom and self-discovery through visual symbolism.” So there’s that. I think it also says something about futility, about how we take up pointless causes and projects and try to make them meaningful, attaching such importance to them that we’re prepared to die rather than give them up. There’s something here about the performative nature of authoritarianism too, about how shedding the apparatus of the oppressor can make people more sympathetic, more human. Who knows? I suspect that, in fact, it’s a hall of mirrors, and all we can see are distorted images of our own mindsets.

Whatever it is, it’s gloriously done. I love it.

4.8 stars

Susan Singfield