Edinburgh Fringe 2024
How Dead Am I?
Fixed House Theatre
Genre: Absurd Theatre, Dark Comedy
Venue: C Aurora
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
There are sweeties on the chair and I scran them. It’s late at night and it is not a children’s show. How absurd. Actually the set is set out like a corner shop and the absurdity keeps coming in a show that does not make sense until it is ready to so do.
Review
We begin with a single character having a conversation with an unseen being who communicates through the lights. From there a group of people arrive in the corner shop onstage where they have no idea why this is here. They also have no idea why they are there but with what is clearly blood on faces and bodies, it soon becomes obvious what it is that Fixed House Theatre are all about.
Their youthfulness cannot totally hide some of the gaps as characters react out of nowhere or struggle to retain some of the audience’s focus. There is, however, an earnestness in their characterisation and delivery of the absurd nature of this piece. It works well enough; however, this could do with some redirecting for it to fit the space.
The premise that nobody can escape this causes problems with so many bodies, literally, on the stage and, literally, still standing. It felt like it was being played to one side of the room rather than being spread out for others to see and engage with. As relationships become fractured and there are creaks and groans beginning to appear some of those relationships struggle to have enough space and opportunity to grow into anything other than one or two lines of dialogue which don’t quite match up with the seriousness of each character’s outbursts.
Where it really does work is in the physical movement and the physicality of the work. It truly has an edge as the young cast show nice technique, though some attention should be given to how actors fall. It shall not be long before bruises will hinder all movement.
There is little doubt that this is challenging and is meant to be. Its ability to communicate, even with a late-night crowd, could bring further issues if some of those areas are not looked at. The beginning of a run will get the curious in but to sustain for over 10 days the run needs to bring them back in. To do that may be to use their skill in physicality to heighten tensions within relationships. There needs to be work on being more fluid when looking for things and not make it pretend looking. It needs to have a bit better in terms of props whilst costumes are decent.
The best part is the club scene which emerges towards the end. The reason that they are there – a shooting at a club – is very well done and whilst the twist at the end could be guessed early on, it still has the ability to surprise. Pushing that more would make this a real radical punk absurd piece of theatre that leads the way rather than follows.
