Edinburgh Fringe 2022
Truth’s a Dog that must to Kennel
Tim Crouch
Genre: Drama, New Writing, Theatre
Venue: The Lyceum
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
In his new play, Tim Crouch, takes the Fool’s departure as his starting point, continuing the journey of the character in King Lear who speaks truth to power.
Review
The Fool in King Lear leaves at the end of Act 3; he’s no idiot – he can see the world imploding around him and doesn’t want to be part of it. What to do in a world where truth no longer has any currency and ‘must be whipped out’? How can theatre speak its truth in a world where truth seems banished?
In his new play, Tim Crouch, takes the Fool’s departure as his starting point, continuing the journey of the character in King Lear who speaks truth to power.
The wooden stage is bare in front of us, set with only a microphone stand, and a stool with a glass of water, the lights are up. Crouch strides on wearing a strange virtual reality headset that transports him to another grander theatre where a production of King Lear is taking place. Turning back to Lear and Gloucester, the blasted heath, hawthorn, chalk, gorse, he unmasks. But, as he takes off the mask, he tells us ‘There’s nothing in it’, nothing beyond imagination.
Playfully examining the contract between audience and performer – what they paid, their motivation for coming, their bodily experience while they’re there – Crouch looks at how precariously our collective suspension of disbelief is balanced. He pulls apart the components of theatre, mercilessly holding up to the light what the last two and half years have done to our world. Why go to the theatre when you can stare at a large screen in your living room and pause for a cup of tea? What is this place? Crouch tells us we’re in a morgue, this is necrophilia, necrotheatre, necrofoyer…
And yet, exploring the scene where Edgar leads his blinded father to a cliff edge, Crouch demonstrates that words, imagination and performance still have the power to create the collective bond of a shared truth between actor and performer.
Crouch tells us from the start that this play doesn’t have jokes, and that it doesn’t have characters, and there’s only him on stage – “This is me”. And yet such is the power of his words and performance that Truth’s a Dog conjures up that theatrical alchemy that populates a world full of characters and laughter. “Oh brave new world, that has such people in’t”.
Bravo, Tim Crouch, the Fool we need to interpret our sad, new world.