Suzanne Magowan

Burning Bright

07/03/23

Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh

This latest season of A Play, A Pie and A Pint promises to be a good ‘un. Hot on the heels of last week’s sprightly Until It’s Gone comes Burning Bright, Áine King’s apocalyptic depiction of the climate crisis engulfing us. It’s no surprise to learn that this play won the 2022 David MacLennan award: it’s evocative and visual, a big story told in small fragments, as economical as poetry.

We are presented with three disparate narratives, linked by an over-arching theme of environmental collapse. Suzanne Magowan is a TV journalist desperately chasing a story about Australian wildfires, more interested in saving her career than in saving the earth. Hannah Jarrett-Scott plays a grief-stricken young woman with an eco-tourism business, taking rich adventurers on her boat, The Ice Princess, to see the polar ice caps before they’re gone. And Adam Buksh is a survivor: he’s escaped floods and tigers in his native India, and now he’s navigating racism on his Glasgow street.

The performances are all strong, the characters compellingly portrayed, and the writing is gorgeously cinematic – the image of a blazing horse, for example, is horribly mesmerising. Roxana Haines (director), Gemma Patchett and Jonny Scott (designers) achieve astonishing things with a tiny stage and a minimal set, so that it’s easy to suspend my disbelief and accept that I am, simultaneously, in the Arctic, Australia, Scotland and India, witnessing fire, floods and melting ice caps.

The conceit works to emphasise the ubiquity and urgency of climate breakdown. Even these characters, closer to the epicentres of disaster than most of us, are each only aware of one aspect of the problem. But here in the audience, we are shown the cumulative effect: their monologues are tangled and entwined, so that we see their interdependence and the extent of the catastrophe that’s looming over us. The image is there throughout, cleverly captured in the juxtaposition of the encroaching wave of plastic waste that dominates the set, and the tiny dinghy representing our precarious position.

Burning Bright is a superbly accomplished piece of theatre, skilfully illuminating why climate change is an issue we can’t afford to ignore.

4.7 stars

Susan Singfield

Five From Inside

21/04/20

Traverse Theatre YouTube

We were looking forward to Donny’s Brain at the Traverse, but then along came a global pandemic to scupper our plans. Enter writer Rona Munro, director Caitlin Skinner and the rest of the cast and crew with a plan to fill the gap: a series of five short monologues, free to view on the theatre’s YouTube channel.

Thematically, we’re in all too familiar territory: one way or another, the characters are all trapped, either physically incarcerated or marooned within their own introspection. It’s a ghastly reminder of the zeitgeist.

First up, there’s Jacob (Bhav Joshi), who’s literally locked up: he’s in prison, desperately seeking help from his brother. The off-kilter camera angles create a sense of panic and disorientation; his fear is palpable. Next comes twitchy Fern (Lauren Grace), who’s also being kept against her will, apparently in some kind of clinic. She’s struggling to ‘colour her mood’ correctly with her crayons. ‘I’m normal,’ she keeps insisting, frantically trying to banish her demons.

Mr Bubbles (Michael Dylan) is a children’s entertainer whose career is on the line after an embarrassing live TV bust-up with his partner; he’s trapped in his character, wiping at his make-up, trying to reveal the self below. And Siobhan (Roanna Davidson) is locked in a cycle of resentment against an employer who ostracises her, and refuses to recognise her contribution to the firm’s success.

My favourite of the five is the last one, Clemmy, performed by Suzanne Magowan (last seen by Bouquets & Brickbats in the thought-provoking Fibres), which takes the form of a filmed confession from a mother to her young daughter. She’s caught in a web of her own lies, and her anguish is heartbreaking. The back story is tantalising; this clearly has the potential to be developed into a longer piece.

But there’s no weak link here, and an astonishing tonal mix, considering the self-limiting nature of the project. Although each one is a stand-alone, they work best when viewed together, a series of lives connected by a sense of isolation.

Available until 9pm on 2nd May, these vignettes are well worth fifty minutes of your time.

3.8 stars

Susan Singfield

Fibres

29/10/19

Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh

Fibres is Frances Poet’s ‘heath and safety’ play, an emotive response to her discovery that an acquaintance had lost both parents, six months apart, due to asbestos poisoning. Poet’s perception of asbestos as ‘something dangerous from the past’ was exposed as a fallacy; subsequently, she learned that more people die of asbestos-related illnesses each year than die in traffic accidents, that the NHS will be footing the bill for corporate greed/negligence until 2040. Mesothelioma takes between twenty and fifty years to develop, and even brief exposure is enough to kill.

Indeed, the brevity of exposure is a key feature of this play. Jack (Jonathan Watson) only works as a shipbuilder for a few days; he’s nervous about the asbestos dust he’s been warned about, so takes a pay cut and becomes an electrician. He thinks he’s dodged a bullet. His wife, Beanie (Maureen Carr), washes his overalls, a simple domestic act fraught with symbolism, as the fibres enter her lungs too.

As you might expect from Poet, there are many layers to be unravelled here; it’s not a simple polemic. There are parallels drawn between the asbestos fibres and the impact of traditional gender roles on a relationship: a slow, invisible poisoning.

Despite the subject matter, it’s not all doom and gloom. Jack and Beanie are a believable couple, muddling through as best they can. They’re facing the horror with fortitude and humour: Jack loves a bit of comedy, and has a catalogue of cringey jokes. Their daughter, Lucy (Suzanne Magowan), is struggling, but her breakdown is shown through a series of bleakly humorous, hide-your-eyes-behind-your-hands-while-your-toes-curl moments.

Breaches in health and safety protocol are given a human face, in the form of Lucy’s boss, Pete (Ali Craig). They work for a fibre optics company, and he’s up against it, trying to meet the demands of a contract while allowing his workers their requisite study days and sick leave. He’s fed up with the union rep’s ‘unreasonable’ demands, preventing him from getting the job done. We’re shown how it happens, how decent people can be pressured into repeating old mistakes. But Pete is given a chance to learn: his fondness for Lucy redeems him.

If this all sounds a bit po-faced, don’t be misled. This plays as a cleverly written domestic tragedy, with a window onto larger political issues. The actors switch between narration and performance; the set (by Jen McGinley) is a fluid, symbolic space, where the characters flit between life and death, the past and the present, dark humour and even darker anger. Jemima Levick’s assured direction ensures that there is no confusion: we always know where and when events are taking place, the pace allowing us time to digest what’s happening.

Fibres is a vital, heartbreaking play with an important message at its core.

4.1 stars

Susan Singfield