Edinburgh Fringe 2024
The Show for Young Men
Eoin McKenzie in collaboration with Robbie Synge and Alfie
Genre: Children's Theatre, Contemporary, Dance, Dance and Movement Theatre
Venue: Assembly Dance Base
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
This visually well composed transgenerational physical performance piece, using elements from dance and circus, often made the audience laugh out loud, but also moved some to tears. It is certainly a thought provoking show.
Review
As the audience enters, Robbie, clad in blue overalls, busies himself on a fairly empty stage. A program discussing football managers is playing on a Makita job site radio. We get the feeling he isn’t listening, it is just on, because football is seen as a manly pursuit and therefore fitting for a building site. The stage is bare apart from a set of bright orange mobile platform steps. A visually pleasing contrast to the blue overalls and the blue smooth floor.
Robbie starts bringing building trade items on stage. There are multicoloured corrugated pipes of different diameters and lengths. Some are big enough to hide a fully grown man, some are so small that a child could pick them up fairly easily and in this production repeatedly does. With their blue, green and black colours, they look like offcuts from extensive water installation. The smooth yellow-orange pipes with their red caps on used as conduits for gas and purple foam sleeves used to cover scaffolding, make sure all the colours of the rainbow are present on this as the blurb describes it an ‘extraordinary building site’.
Robbie wheels in galvanized steel hoarding panels on wheels. Unnoticed by Robbie, but not the audience, Alfie is hiding behind the last panel, perched on the wheel brace and like a Celtic pixie he starts to create harmless mischief by rearranging the pipes and sleeves very much to the annoyance of the adult. Robbie might want to tidy up, but Alfie wants to play. It takes a while, but ultimately Alfie’s intention succeed. Robbie is drawn in into this carefree appearing world of Alfie. Robbie’s running after Alfie evolves into a running with Alfie. Their movements become physically close to the point of close contact in various body balancing moves. Robbie has become Alfie’s climbing frame, but at the same time Alfie becomes Robbie’s juggling tool.
And more and more Robbie gets in touch with his inner child. From busy working man he grows into annoyed big brother and then evolves into caring uncle or step-dad. When Alfie hides to start off a game of hide and seek Robbie gets worried. He has started to care. An incredibly sweet moment.
This is an intimate performance showing a tenderness between an adult male and a child that society, for good reasons, has become to see with suspicion. And at time it does feel uncomfortable. To all purpose these are two strangers, meeting on a building site away from other people and in less than an hour become very close. The fear of making a wrong step or doing something innocent that could easily misinterpreted is a huge part of men’s lives today. How is man to behave in a society where men are needed in children’s and especially boys lives, yet fewer are willing to be full-time dads. Those who want to give their time, for example as primary school teachers, have their motivation questioned.
The production’s blurb starts with the question: ‘What does it mean to be a man today?’ While the production is entertaining, well executed and visually pleasing, I am not sure it really went so far as to explore the topic in any great depth. Maybe the issues around modern masculinity are so vast that no one element of society can answer that question. To me this production was more an investigation into how society sees men with a loving, caring side. There clearly were discussions between the performers Robbie Synge and the boy Alfie. Clips of interviews of both were played towards the end of the show, allowing the audience an insight into what the two dancers gained from working together. Alfie seems to see his improved skillset as a dancer was the main plus point for him, his colleague Robbie seems to have grown more on a personal level.
The use of the building materials as sets and playthings varies from the visual interesting to the surprising. The large, black drainage pipes are used to hide and roll around in. The steel hoarding creates various backdrops that never let’s the seen appear boring. I would have liked more use of the smaller tubes, but really enjoyed the visual effects created with lights shining through the pipes or creating a sunset shadow scene when used with thick orange plastic sheeting. The ingenious repurposing of building materials is definitely a highlight of this production directed by Eoin McKenzie in collaboration with Robbie Synge (44 y.o) and the teen year old boy Alfie.
I would recommend The show for Young Men to families with younger children and maybe also older teenagers. While it won’t be able to fix the problem of toxic masculinity it can well be a good starting point for a discussion over the dinner table.
This show has been programmed by Dance Base in collaboration with Assembly. Part of the Made in Scotland Showcase, in association with Imaginate. MadeInScotlandShowcase.com
