The evenings are getting cooler, the nights are getting longer and we just so happen to be knocking on the very month of October: it seems the perfect opportunity for The Festival Theatre to unleash its rather macabre fare upon the Edinburgh public!
You know, I have to admit in all my life of going to the theatre I don’t think I ever saw a supernatural play before! But then I come to Edinburgh, and I discover that Capital Theatres (Be it The Festival, The Kings or The Studio) have introduced me to everything from the mildly esoteric, to giving me the screaming heebie-jeebies over the years! So I’m very happy to see this tradition continue in the Festival’s latest offering of “2:22-A Ghost Story”.
What happens when a person who’s lost their faith, an ever increasing drunk, a mystic and a skeptic get together? It sounds like the beginning of a really bad joke but it truly is the set up for an intimate and unsettling supernatural piece.
Jenny (Louisa Lytton) has been alone for a few days, in her recently bought but half refurbished old house with only her baby for company, whilst her husband, Sam (Nathainel Curtis) has been out in the field for work. But as he’s been away, she’s convinced that not only is her new home haunted but her newborn child is as well. And so, on the evening her wandering husband returns and their old college friend Lauren (Charlene Boyd) turns up with her new boyfriend Ben (Joe Absolom) to join them in a meal; dinner and a show takes on quite a deeper and darker meaning.
This play is quite rich with questions, be it about people’s spiritual beliefs or just the way they live their lives. It’s also interesting in the fact that all the characters are flawed in very human ways and Danny Robbins (writer) is quite deft at creating these nuances but equally in crafting a play that has a natural feeling to its ratcheting tension. The scares are certainly there but they’re not overwhelming. As a matter of fact, the ‘scares’ I mentioned help to create quite the clamour and the hubbub between audience members which only adds to these types of productions. And I think directors Matthew Dunster and Isabel Marr deserve a great hand for that.
And talking about creators, Anna Fleischle (set designer) and Lucy Carter (lighting designer) have almost a symbiotic nature in their set up. Fleischle really gets the balance right of showing the natural qualities of a half set up old house! What with the Ikea kitchen on one side of the room in contrast with the age old water stains on the opposing wall. The stage truly felt it was half lived in. And Carter’s lighting style definitely helps to enhance this. Particularly, when the main lights are dimmed and smaller lamps are used to create a more evocative atmosphere. And similar praise must be given to Chris Fisher who is in charge of the illusions that happen on the stage. They’re seamlessly done, which can be a very difficult thing to execute in the middle of a dramatic scene and certainly helped to sell this spooky kitchen sink drama.
All the actors are on par, but I think special mention should go to Boyd as her role is a bit more physical than the others. When she trips or knocks something over, it’s not done as a pratfall and is incredibly realistically done.
And it’s the realism of this show that I think is its main credit. Just think of it, all the best ghost stories have a feeling that they could happen to anybody. That they could happen to you…
So what are you waiting for, get yourself down to the Festival forthwith to get your spook on!
Markus Helbig
Radio Summerhall Arts 