Edinburgh Fringe theatre reviews: Comala, Comala | Or What’s Left Of Us + more

Juan Rulfo’s novel about life and death in Mexico Pedro Paramo is adapted mysteriously and beautifully by Pulpo Arts in Comala, Comala – the highlight of our latest round-up of Fringe theatre reviews

Comala, Comala ★★★★

Zoo Southside (Venue 82) until 25 August

Or What’s Left Of Us ★★★

Summerhall (Venue 26) until 25 August

Death and mourning is a pervasive theme on this year’s Fringe; so much so that it’s tempting to wonder whether it represents a delayed reaction to the UK’s huge Covid death toll of almost a quarter of a million souls, still barely processed in our public imagination.

Whatever the reason, though, it is a real privilege - among so much personal grief - to be reminded of the vivid, gritty and macabre ways with death that survive in communal folk traditions across the world; and nowhere more so than in Mexico, with its powerful Day of the Dead traditions.

Comala, Comala - presented by Pulpo Arts of Mexico City and New York - is a mysterious, beautiful and completely enthralling stage adaptation of Juan Rulfo’s novel Pedro Paramo, about the relationship between the dead and living in Mexico, and the legacy of a vicious and corrupt village patriarch who has left little but destruction in his wake. After a deathbed confession from his mother, Pedro’s illegitimate son Juan Preciado arrives in the almost deserted small town of Comala, seeking vengeance against his father.

What he finds, though, is a village of the dead riven by patterns of grief, hatred and betrayal, where ghosts and the living walk cheek by jowl; and in this remarkable production, all of this is brought to life by a stunningly talented company of seven actors, singers and musicians, all crammed - along with their instruments and a substantial set - into the tiny Studio at Zoo Southside.

If the scale of the production is almost comically mismatched to the space, though, the power of the performances, and of Pablo Chemor’s music and lyrics, remains overwhelming. The English surtitles are excellent, as are the tiny glasses of mescal offered around the audience; and among a terrific company, actress and singer Maria Penella turns in a stunning vocal performance, as the living embodiment of so many women betrayed by the evils of patriarchy in Mexico and elsewhere, and sent down to dusty death.

The latest show from the much-loved London-based duo Shit Theatre (Rebecca Biscuit and Louise Mothersole) also confronts death and loss - in this case, the tragic recent loss of a member of their family, and of the Shit Theatre team. Like Comala, Comala, Or What’s Left Of Us turns to traditional culture in the search for understanding; but here, it’s the wit, wisdom and earthy attachment to alcoholic drink that runs through the English folk song tradition.

Biscuit and Mothersole therefore appear in mediaeval garb, wearing traditional animal masks, and in front of woodcuts of ancient English rural scenes involving death; but once they have flagged up this conjunction of ideas, and sung a few folk songs very well indeed, they give a strong impression of running out of things to say, both about the fact of their loss, and about the encounters with folk music in which they found consolation.

By this time, though, their hugely sympathetic audience have all but taken control of the event, joining lustily in the singing, and preparing for the post-show singaround in the neighbouring Summerhall Gallery. And if this highly personal show is likely to disappoint those who love Shit Theatre’s witty and perceptive sideways looks at the social politics of our time, it perhaps represents a necessary moment of recovery and reconnection, greatly appreciated by those who find themselves in a similar place.

Joyce McMillan

THEATRE

Wait, Why Don’t We Just Build a Boy? ★★★

Greenside @ Riddles Court (Venue 16) until 17 August

A storm rages, and something stirs under a pink sequined sheet. “It’s alive, it’s alive!” yells one of the young women in Kilda Kennedy’s laugh-out-loud comedy. It’s a simple and silly set-up: two female flatmates-turned-Frankensteins abduct and reanimate a man from the mall, Adam, and attempt to ‘retrain’ him as the perfect partner for their friend and flatmate, Dolly. Their methodology? Get him to watch movies featuring male leads who may look good on the telly but fair less well in the reality of a Gen Z lounge: Tyler from Fight Club, Noah from The Notebook, and the posh one from Saltburn.

Adam’s part boyfriend, part child, part pet. It shouldn’t be so funny but it is, thanks to Kennedy’s well-observed dialogue, which captures the nuances of how definitions of an ‘ideal man’ is have changed over the decades but remained consistently farcical. Behind the tightly choreographed mayhem, the piece touches on the hopelessness of three smart young woman who can’t find a partner who’s even close. A mash-up of all the Hollywood hunks (what could go wrong?) spectacularly implodes. Where to go next is less clear, and a final voiceover lacks the sophistication of the script elsewhere, but Kennedy’s exciting writing is otherwise full of comic flair with a lot of promise.

Sally Stott

THEATRE

Making Marx ★★★

Assembly Rooms (venue 20) until 25 August

Directed by Fringe stalwart Guy Masterson and immaculately performed by Jenny Francesca, this one woman show about Jenny Marx, the wife of Father of Communism Karl, is less interested in biographical detail than by what she represents.

The mix of monologue and physical theatre sets out to rescue the woman trapped inside history books written by men who labelled her “beautiful but stupid”, rather than an intellectual foil for her celebrated spouse. Just another talented woman airbrushed out of history.

After a prolonged mood-setting introduction we learn a little about the couple’s relationship, starting with childhood friendship, through marriage, troubled parenthood and the demands of being a revolutionary’s partner.

Presiding over the whole affair is a voiceover of the writer/researcher, accompanied by the click of typewriter keys, telling Jenny what to say and how to feel. “They must get no insight into your personality” she demands, as Jenny literally loses her voice.

A series of theatrical devices are used to investigate the agency of both performer and character, breaking the fourth wall and making the audience complicit in the truth – or otherwise – of what’s on stage. There’s so much going on that it feels suffocated by the one hour running time – double the length would be required to do the tangle of ambitious ideas justice.

David Hepburn

THEATRE

Projection ★★★

Laughing Horse @ City Café (Venue 85) until 25 August

She’s 37, in a venue that’s really a karaoke bar full of her 20-year-old ‘flatmates’, aka the audience, looking for love with an unsuitable man who can barely pick up the phone. “Shall I text him,” she asks. “No!” says Natalie from Glasgow, “Do. Not. Text. Him. Never Text Him.” Aideen McQueen is very funny, playing glamourous wine swigging Lucy, in a piece that she’s written with her sister, which, as she tells us at the end is “largely based on us.”

With Paul, a 25-year-old from her yoga class doing the tech, it has the relaxed mood of stand-up and a story structured around a delusional, but also very likable, woman projecting large-scale romantic dreams onto a generic man from Tinder who clearly isn’t interested. “No drama,” he says – and so Lucy creates her own, capturing a bizarre one-sided chase and making fun of both the men and women involved. With her Irish storytelling charm, she gives a female perspective on a type of woman who’s often dismissed as a ‘bunny boiler’ or derided with a smug sense of self-satisfaction. While it doesn’t delve too deeply into where her desperation might come from, it’s a theatrical and very funny affirmation for all of those who would like it to stop.

Sally Stott

THEATRE

The Book of Joan ★★

The Space on the Mile (39) until 24 August

In this curiously offbeat production, lesbian Catholic schoolgirl Grace’s only friend is a hallucination of Joan of Arc. The medieval martyr appears in her bedroom mirror, before suddenly kissing Grace on the lips. It’s a fun premise, touching on repression, sexuality, and sadomasochism, but this very short play fails to explore any of it meaningfully.

The two performers push each other around the space, with a strangely aggressive physicality, and there’s very little actual dialogue. Unfortunately, it becomes very hard to tell what’s going on, or what the play is trying to say, leaving moments such as a shouted slur feeling very jarring. This is a concept that could be very fun, but is let down by overly sparse storytelling.

Katie Kirkpatrick

THEATRE

Hardly Working ★★

theSpace on the Mile (Venue 39) until 24 August

It’s not just the central relationship that is fatally unconvincing in this new play by Jessie Millson, it’s also the characters. Pub manager, Lois employs the stereotypically posh Charity and before you know it — our believe it — they’ve embarked on a sexual relationship which becomes strained by differences in class and income. Charity (and how on the nose is that name?) lives in a seven-bedroom house left to her by her parents, while Lois struggles to make rent. It’s an index of how unbelievable this is that the strongest character is a saturnine bar patron who may be a manifestation of Lois’s imagination or possibly just a handy theatrical device. The actors all put in a decent shift but no cast could make this work effectively.

Rory Ford