The List Festival: 20 Aug 2015 (77/100)

list.co.uk/festival Reviews | FESTIVAL THEATRE

S O K A L D R A H C R © O T O H P

MÉNAGE An interview with a prostitute ●●●●●

TETHER Exposing the raw ambition of competitive runners ●●●●● HOW TO BE FAT Moving monologue performed with finesse ●●●●●

From a verbatim script by Ryan Good, ménage is an intimate, site-specific show which happens in a secret location for two audience members at a time. Having been ushered into the bedroom by a glamorous, if distant, young woman, the audience is invited to listen to her explain her life choices. Rather than exploiting the sexual tension, Good’s

script collects a variety of voices, neither ignoring the problems (shame, relationship issues, police raids) nor forgetting the humanity of the woman. It even deals with the practical, and negative, consequences of recent legislation.

The discomfort of being in close proximity to the performer lends an immediacy to the performance. It’s impossible to ignore the woman as she recounts her experiences, playing with expectations but also slipping into melancholy or baseless optimism. The message is simple – sex workers are not pariahs, but people who have the same range of emotions and experiences as other workers. By using interviews with real women, Good has found a way to bypass the usual clichés and create a site-specific show where the format enhances the subject. (Gareth K Vile) ■ Underbelly George Square, 0844 545 8252, until 30 Aug, times vary, £14.

When marathon hopeful Mark fails to make the cut for team GB, his girlfriend suggests he act as a guide for blind runner Becky. In Hollywood’s hands Tether could so easily be an over-sentimental tale of self-sacrifice but Isley Lynn’s script focuses instead on the raw ambition of competitive athletes. Mark wants gold, Becky wants a higher placing and they’re both selfish in the pursuit of their goals. Tether provides a fascinating insight into this unique sporting partnership as well as athletes with a visual disability. Becky notes that, as a woman, being blind isn’t her biggest challenge. Her dry sense of humour as Mark attempts to guide her provide regular comic relief but it’s not until late in the play that the pair have a chance to unleash strong emotions in a tense and furious argument. Tether is an impressively physical performance.

Both cast members spend the majority of the play running, delivering their lines between deep breaths. Spot lighting and pulsing beats coupled with increasingly pained faces create convincing marathon montages but the big race scenes fall a bit flat. (Rowena McIntosh) ■ Underbelly Cowgate, 0844 545 8252, until 30 Aug, 2pm, £9–£10 (£8–£9).

Mathilda Gregory is, by her own admission, not ‘curvy’, ‘voluptuous’, or ‘horizontally tall’: just fat. And, she says, despite the well-intentioned objections to this label, 18 stones of weight on a 5’5” frame are hard to dismiss. In her latest show, How to be Fat, Gregory gives a warm, funny and intimate history of her relationship with her body and its relationship with the world.

She begins lightly, hilariously skewering common reactions to a fat body and mocking the unrealistic and futile demands of diet plans. Her seemingly effortless delivery belies a sharp sense of comic timing and masterful audience control. In this small bar, it often feels like a chat with a hilarious friend.

But a more vulnerable side to Gregory’s character emerges. Opening up about her previous attempts to lose weight, she bares her latent anxieties about her body for all to see. And while she laughs at her own irrational view of thinness as the solution to all her problems, the projected slides reveal an insecure truth that is difficult to share.

How to be Fat is a deeply personal, yet universally relatable solo show. (Jordan Shaw) ■ ZOO Southside, 662 6892, until 31 Aug, 6.55pm, £8.50 (£7.50).

THE ENCOUNTER Unforgettable journey into the Amazon through 3D sound ●●●●●

About a quarter of the way through Simon McBurney’s new show with Complicite, I realise I am watching with my jaw open. So astonishing and inventive is this production that it feels like we’re witnessing a real turning point in theatre, a performance that will be looked back on in years to come as hugely influential.

The Encounter uses binaural (3D) sound technology, which

the audience experiences through the headphones provided, to bring Petru Popescu’s Amazon Beaming to the stage. Popescu’s 1993 book tells the real tale of American photographer Loren McIntyre, who travels to the Amazon in 1969, encounters the ‘uncontacted’ Mayoruna tribe and is seemingly captured. The Amazonian setting evokes images of rich, green vegetation

and coursing rivers; but on stage here at the ultra-modern Conference Centre, McBurney has only a tangle of wires, some bottles of water, speakers and a head-shaped binaural microphone for company. Behind him on the expansive, empty- ish stage is a huge anechoic (echo-free) chamber wall, and its formidable appearance gets drawn into the show too.

What McBurney does so well is demystify binaural technology, explaining to us in entertaining detail how it works. So when he begins to tell McIntyre’s story – loosely intercut with the actor’s young daughter’s amusing interjections during his working process – we’re not over-awed by the technology because we understand how it works. Instead, we’re captivated by how McBurney uses it to create a deeply immersive world. It’s an intense unforgettable two hours, thanks to its intelligent

set-up and McBurney’s astounding performance. If Fergus Linehan continues to programme breathtaking works like this for the EIF, we’re in for a good few years ahead. (Yasmin Sulaiman) ■ EICC, 473 2000, until 23 Aug, 7.30pm (20 & 23, 2.30pm), £32 (£16).

20–31 Aug 2015 THE LIST FESTIVAL 75