Edinburgh Fringe 2025
Double Take
Dutch Kills Theater Company & Broken Box Mime Theatre
Genre: Mime, Physical Theatre, Theatre
Venue: Zoo Playground
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
Becky Baumwoll and Tasha Milkman bring to the stage a mime show which, although initially seeming to follow the classic canons of mime performance, steps out into new territory, embracing micro-theatre, hand puppetry and daring gesture theatre compositions.
Review
Double Take is a one-hour-long, non-verbal mime performance staged by US artists Becky Baumwoll and Tasha Milkman. The performance is a co-production of the companies Dutch Kills Theater Company and Broken Box Mime Theatre. One wonders where the name Dutch Kills comes from, as it is initially a bit off-putting, leading the audience to think at first that the two actresses come from some really rough neighbourhood of Amsterdam or Utrecht.
In reality, the ensemble comes from the US and brings to the stage a tasty mime show. It is a delicious treat in a festival dominated by comedy or verbal theatre.
The structure of the show seems at first to be simple. The performance is a sequence of isolated scenes that dramaturgically have their own beginning and end. Each story is introduced by a title drawn by the two performers on a blackboard, bringing us back to the times of silent cinema. Furthermore, both performers wear the typical painted white mask of the mime, in the style of Marcel Marceau, which once again reinforces a classical style.
However, the stories staged before the audience slowly veer into a modern post-industrial setting. Starting from a story built around an old gramophone in which an old lady dwells on the pleasures of youth, Becky and Tasha start to explore a digital world made of YouTube video consumption, videogame challenges and lack of connection due to overuse of digital media. As the performance embraces other themes such as ecology and corporate greed, the classical canons of mime are abandoned by the actresses in an artistic research in movement that reaches a climax made of complex hand and finger theatre constructions.
The physical performance is enhanced by a setup which is minimalist: a bare stage, two black box-shaped stools, as well as the choice of costumes.
Overall, a show which is original and at times even experimental in some of its developments, accompanied by an enjoyable musical soundtrack, but one that could dive even deeper into the realm of pure gesture theatre using the sole accompaniment of silence.
