Theatre Review: Every One
* * * *
Kyle McPhail, Jonathan Hackett, Kathryn Howden, Jenny Hulse & Tina Gray. Photo Tim Morozzo
Royal Lyceum
By Thom Dibdin
Tough and emotional, Jo Clifford’s new play for the Royal Lyceum takes an unblinking look into the tragedy of a death in the family, in a production which breaks theatrical conventions and crosses social boundaries.
This is genuinely exciting stuff, which is a touch surprising for a subject so morbid and a staging that, at the outset, is so static. But it is that staging which allows director Mark Thomson to do Clifford’s words such justice.
There is no real break between the audience’s arrival and the start of the show. The house lights don’t dim and the only hint that a performance has actually started is when the ushers close the doors and take their places.
The scenery, such as it is, creates a room at the front of the stage, a box that is barely deep enough to accommodate the five performers who will, after a while, appear. It is walled with dirty, concave mirrored tiles.
Into this box which reflects, after a fashion, both them and the audience, walk the five family members to whom the tragedy will occur. They, in a series of dry, sometimes faltering, always completely natural monologues, reveal who they are and how they came upon the fateful day when…
Read the rest of this review in the Edinburgh Evening News here.
Run ends 10 April
