Sally Hobson

Baby Mash-Up, What On Earth Are You Doing?

23/05/26

Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh

The play that lurks behind that somewhat portentous title is a strange, fragmentary affair, featuring seemingly unanswered questions in the life of the titular character. These moments are revealed in a series of short scenes that career back and forth across the years. When we first encounter her, Baby Mash-Up (Claire Lamont) is a child, drawing simple designs onto paper, her primitive artwork displayed on a series of hanging sheets that provide a backdrop. But as soon as she speaks, it’s clear that she’s actually an adult looking back at her own childhood.

But this is to be no ordinary journey through one person’s life. It will include the bombastic observations of her father (Benny Young), her tragic mother (Pauline Goldsmith) and her sister (Jasmin Gleeson). There will be regular interruptions from various famous philosophers, memories of the horrors of Belfast’s Bloody Friday – and some involuntary tap-dancing. There are also regular visits from two mysterious young men (Paul Gorman and Cristian Ortega). The latter duo appear to have been charged with resetting Baby M’s life when things go wrong – which they often do – a simple process that involves putting her into a washing machine and pressing the ‘on’ switch.

Note to self: where can I get one of those? Amazon?

You could say that the play is pretentious and perhaps it is, a little bit, but that’s not necessarily a criticism. Some of the most ambitious art is ostentatious by its very nature and it’s undeniable that Sally Hobson’s Baby Mash-Up does exert an increasingly stronger hold on me as it progresses, until by the final scenes, I am completely hooked.

On the technical side, I’m impressed by Nicholas Bone’s tight direction, which keeps the piece unerringly on course – and by Cal Owen’s inventive set design, which is further enhanced by Dick Straker’s immersive video effects. The cast are uniformly excellent in their respective roles (particularly Gorman and Ortega, who are compelled to leap from character to character at the drop of a philosopher’s hat) and even if I do leave the theatre still asking myself ‘what the flip was that all about?’ I have nonetheless been both challenged and thoroughly entertained.

Job done.

4 stars

Philip Caveney

The Play of Light upon the Earth: A Reading

05/09/19

Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh

The Play of Light upon the Earth by Sally Hobson is an unusual piece of writing: a play structured into twenty-seven chapters, representing the psychological fragmentation that follows trauma. For the protagonist, Innocence (Jessica Hardwick), Bloody Friday is the trigger. The shock of this childhood experience, long-repressed, explodes into her adult life, forcing her to confront its impact.

It feels like a genuine privilege to be here at this stage of the creative process: the play is still being developed, still seeking its perfect form. In this rehearsed reading, directed by Muriel Romanes, we get a sense of what it could become. Because there is little movement (the actors are seated behind a trestle table), the focus is inevitably on the language, which is dense and lyrical, packed with literary references, Joycean in its verbal inventiveness.

Maureen Beattie’s reading (as narrator and Mother) is particularly engaging, delivered with intensity and vigour. Benny Young (narrator and Father) is good too: very funny, despite the gravity of what’s being said. There is, in fact, a lot of humour in this play: the light that shows the shade for what it really is.

This is a thought-provoking, intellectually-demanding piece, and I’m fascinated to see how it turns out. Post-show discussion about staging throws up various options, from a grand, large-scale production with a cast of hundreds, to a more minimalist notion, with a few key characters inhabiting a huge stage. I’m struck by the idea of a multi-media approach, which I think might suit this spoken-word/performance-art/play hybrid.

Whatever. I’ll certainly be keeping an eye out to see where this goes.

Susan Singfield