Isla Cowan’s newest play, And… And… And… is an increasingly rare creature in today’s fraught creative marketplace. It has what we might describe as ‘clarity of nuance’, able to juxtapose climate anxiety and social inequality without one hectoring the other.
Claire (Tiana Milne-Wilson) and Cassie (Caroline McKeown) are long-time best friends. With their school days ending, thoughts are turning to what comes next. For the academically gifted Cassie, that means law school, specifically environmental law. For Claire, it means finding a job to support her morbidly unwell mother. They rise each day to news of the advancing climate crisis writ large across their smartphone screens. Doom is coming, and it’s on them to fix it.
McKeown travels the more familiar path in Cowan’s story, bright, informed, and progressively torn apart by a combination of overwhelming responsibility and individual impotence. Still, it’s an excellent performance, a believable descent into ethically sound zealotry.
Embodying And… And… And…‘s less privileged voice, McKeown grounds the play in the everyday reality of life for many in a post (or not so post) austerity Britain. Lacking the time, or emotional bandwidth to organise protests, her limited options for immediate survival are still laced with shame. A local plastic-producing behemoth is offering paid apprenticeships, a chance to pay the rent today, and cost the Earth. Hers is a fine, sophisticated performance.
Director Steve Small sets an atmospheric tone, layering in Gavin Fort‘s sound design to drive a pacey, but unrushed play. Katie Innes‘s design is substantial, giving hints of a giant set of toy blocks, and a sense of our young protagonists building the world around them. Exploiting the versatility of the set is key to making this a play, as opposed to one long philosophical conversation.
There’s no escaping, and indeed no need to escape, the philosophical basis of the text, however. Fortunately, Cowan is wise enough not to prescribe more value to one side of the inevitable argument than the other. Cleverly, she teases the possibility of the play collapsing into a lecture, before pulling the rug from beneath the requisite feet. The play would still fail if the two protagonists did not share such a natural chemistry. The audience believes in their friendship and cares when it comes under threat.
Conversely, there is a brief diversion into meta-theatre as matters reach a head, an orchestrated breaking of character which And… And… And… could comfortably do without. Navel-gazing is a bad habit.
Nonetheless, And… And… And… is an engaging, and valuable new play. It gives voice to those without the luxury of high ideals, without rubbishing the ideals themselves. In sublimating its title from a despairing list of catastrophes, to a list of possible actions, it offers a necessary message. You cannot save the world, explains Cowan, by visiting tragedy on your neighbour. This cracking new play from Edinburgh’s Strange Town Theatre is touring Edinburgh schools, and is precisely the sort of mature work we should be placing in front of young minds.
