Review: Peak Stuff – Traverse Theatre

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Described as “a messed up show for messed up times”, Billie Collins’ Peak Stuff is a seriously slick, and well-choreographed show. With one actor, Meg Lewis, three stories, and a percussionist, Matthew Churcher, the production hovers someplace between classic monologue and slam poetry.

Lewis gives a superbly accomplished turn, creating three fully fleshed characters with differing dictions and idiosyncratic physicality. There’s swaggering Ben and his pathological retail addiction, introverted Charlie with a unique approach to selling their body, and anxiety-driven Alice increasingly obsessed with ending fast fashion.

‘Stuff’ really is the maypole about which Collins has her trio dance, each damaged by their relationship with it, and spiralling towards crisis.

The technical execution of Peak Stuff is simply outstanding, director Neil Bettles cultivating a symbiotic relationship between Lewis and Churcher. The complex rhythms conjured from Churcher’s drumkit, perched high and behind Lewis, both drive and respond to the drama. About them, Charly Dunford’s sharp lighting scheme and Tripledor Makers inventive video projections combine to create an abstract take on a Star Trek holodeck. Watch out in particular for the sublime transitions between scene and character.

Additionally, a cleverly illuminated rim around the rectangular dais containing and focusing Lewis’s performance comes alive with colour cues and pulses not unlike an Alexa unit. It’s a potent mood setter and a palpable symbol of the consumerist culture being examined.

The trio of stories are well-conceived, and truly diverse, though the hoarding executive aside, the other two could use just a little more exposition. Why is the eco-anxious teen leaving dead animals on the premises of unethical companies, and how does she source them? What precisely is our Etsypreneur actually giving away when she donates her brain to the digital world?

Despite these questions, the characters and their fates are engaging, each pulling the audience down an individual rabbit hole. Peak Stuff also benefits from a great sense of humour, heavy with sharp observations on consumer culture and our often conflicted relationship with it.

“All bags” Alice wryly observes, “are reusable.”

Moreover, Peak Stuff doesn’t protect any of its characters from the consequences of their actions, or the failures of others they come into contact with. Dealings with men on the internet take depressingly familiar turns, whilst denying your mother’s death via uncontrolled purchasing does result in bankruptcy, and a house stuffed to the deathtrap stage.

“The trio of stories are well-conceived, and truly diverse, though the hoarding executive aside, the other two could use just a little more exposition.”

Each character’s journey to their respective fate is relayed by actions supplemented by introspection, but studiously avoiding an abundance of navel-gazing. The interest it generates isn’t entirely rewarded come the cataclysmic finale, however, the final lines of the play enigmatic to the point of befuddlement.

Yet, for all the questions left behind, Peak Stuff never outstays its welcome, nor does it drag at any point. A gripping central performance, outstanding technical execution, and three fresh takes on the consumerist age make the 75 minutes zip by. It’s just a touch of clarity away from being a very impressive play indeed.

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Peak Stuff will play the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh until tonight, the 2nd March. The UK tour will continue thereafter, for tickets and venue details, click here.

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