Theatre reviews: Run, Rebel | Bright Places

Jessica Kaur delivers a brilliant performance in Run, Rebel, a completely absorbing piece of total theatre, writes Joyce McMillan

Pamela Raith | Pamela Raith

Run, Rebel, Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh ★★★★

Bright Places, Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh ★★★

In an age of backlash, when women’s rights are coming under increasing threat in the United States and elsewhere, shows like Pilot Theatre of York’s Run, Rebel – which played briefly at the Traverse Theatre this weekend – come as a powerful reminder that far from feminism having “gone too far”, for many women the journey to freedom and autonomy is only just beginning.

Based on the award-winning 2021 novel by young British Asian writer Manjeet Mann, Run, Rebel tells the story of Amber, a young West Midlands Asian girl with a terrific talent for running.

Her problem is her Dad, a violent unemployed drunk who literally threatens to kill his wife and daughters if they “shame the family” by disobeying him. Amber’s older sister Ruby has already been married off, while Amber has been forbidden to run for her school athletics team any longer; and her mother works herself into the ground to keep the family fed and housed, while bearing the brunt of her husband’s drunken violence.

Over two hours plus an interval, Run, Rebel therefore tells the story of Amber’s long struggle – with the help of her school – to escape from this cruel situation.

Inspired by the history of the French Revolution to rebel against her father’s tyranny, Amber encourages her mother to learn to read, and finds ways of continuing to run; but lives in a constant fear that affects her own behaviour at school, and almost breaks her relationship with her best friends, not least because she feels unable to speak to anyone about her situation.

All of this is retold with power and passion in Tessa Walker’s production of Manjeet Mann’s own stage adaptation, which blends movement with a thrilling east-west musical score (by Niraj Chag), and plenty of vivid talk, in a fine and completely absorbing piece of total theatre, partly aimed at younger audiences.

Jessica Kaur delivers a glowingly brilliant performance as Amber, complex, driven, terrified and brave; there is impressive support from Asha Kingsley as her mother and Qumran Kular as Ruby.

And if Pushpinder Chani as her father seems a bit of a caricature of a patriarchal villain at first, in the end, like the Wizard of Oz, he is exposed as a vulnerable paper tiger; a fate that may one day be shared by many of the bullying misogynists currently stalking the political stage, and the dark places of the internet.

Bright Places | Graeme Braidwood

Rae Mainwaring’s Bright Places – which also visited the Traverse this week – likewise offers a strong female response to a difficult and threatening situation; but here, the threat involves multiple sclerosis or MS, a degenerative disease that often strikes people in early adulthood, just when their lives are beginning to take shape.

Mainwaring’s short 75 minute play – produced by Carbon Theatre and Birmingham Rep, and also directed by Tessa Walker – is partly based on her own experience of being diagnosed with MS in the 1990s; and it emerges as both an entertaining cultural nostalgia trip, driven by a great playlist of 90s dance music, and a kind of one-woman show for three actors, in which Mainwaring creates a character called Louise as a surrogate heroine, and allows Louise’s story to move between two actors, Lauren Foster and Aimee Berwick, while the third, Rebecca Holmes, mainly plays the other characters.

There are times when the show’s sparkly, upbeat approach to its subject seems a little forced and desperate, as Louise finds herself fascinated by the “bright places” on her brain scan that confirm her diagnosis, or beset by a showbiz star who embodies her “myelin sheathe” - the nerve lining damaged by MS.

In the end, though, there’s no denying the wisdom and emotional strength at the heart of the show, or the job it fulfils in informing audiences; and it’s good to know that more than 25 years on from her diagnosis, Rae Mainwaring is here to tell the tale, with courage, gaiety, and style.

Both shows: runs completed