EdFringe Review: Gameplay

---

Reader, I missed Carmen Collective’s well-received Lessons on Revolution last year, and regretted it. I wasn’t going to repeat that mistake this year; I should have been more cautious.

A self-described ‘audio-described myth for the end times’, this stripped-down hour of experimental theatre is bait for an anxiety-ridden niche of modern society. A mash-up of factional audiobook and rehearsed essay, the evidently talented duo of Sam Rees and musician-composer AJ Turner cannot be accused of not giving their all, however.

They are quite right that “theatre” isn’t a discipline restricted to character-occupied drama, but they aren’t the first to discover this. Throw a stone around Edinburgh any August, and you’ll hit 10 theatrical shows bursting happily out of that envelope. Which isn’t to say Rees and Turner’s show is run-of-the-mill, far from it; I’d even say it’s both well made and performed. Kudos are also due for making such an inherently accessible show.

Rees proves themselves a master of the monologue, their voice dynamic, and the words delivered with a fine, clear rhythm. What they have to say, however, is a palimpsest of philosophical and historical writing of this and the previous century. Anyone old enough, or curious enough, to have seen Threads doesn’t need an introduction to the horrors of nuclear armageddon; if you need a wonderfully immersive soundscaped (between controller, violin, and guitar, AJ Turner does some great work) introduction to the topic, then you haven’t been paying attention.

“A self-described ‘audio-described myth for the end times’, this stripped-down hour of experimental theatre is bait for an anxiety-ridden niche of modern society.”

Literary Competence vs. Preaching to the Choir

The writing is good, don’t get me wrong; the imagery of Swan Lake playing on Russian television, either to calm anxieties or as an act of defiance thereafter, is a powerful, returning motif. Woven into a quasi-hypnotic stream of consciousness that takes us back to Arkhipov’s famous decision not to start nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis and forward into an imagined night in the life of former Daily Mail critic Quentin Letts, these potent devices suggest true literary competence.

Now, I consider Letts to be an odious excuse for a journalist, but it’s a weird obsession to bring with you onto stage. As a former card-carrying Corbynista, I probably share much of the politics of Rees and Turner, but at best GAMEPLAY is preaching to a left-leaning choir; at worst it’s just screaming fears and a few loaded, inventively funny pot-shots at a writer they dislike, into a void. We get it, the world is in perma-crisis; and theatre can be more than actors playing parts on a stage.

Theatre can, and should, say more than this.

---

---