Seen at Edinburgh Festival Fringe on the 23^rd of August 2019

Review by Federica Balbi

– ʻBoundʼ to be critical

© The Other Richard 1

© Claire Clifton Coles 1

A young woman, almost naked, hangs from the ceiling – the rope like lace draws diamonds around her chest and her leg. With this powerful image begins a show, which is to touch several themes, and discuss them from the double point of view of a girl in her twenties and her mother.

    The first image is quickly dismissed when the show begins. Words take the stage while Maisy Taylor unbinds herself. The first monologue is probably the weakest, concerning beauty and an outer look on the protagonist’s body, with a shift onto her own perception. But this is the premise for what comes after.

    Her mother, performed by Tamsin Shasha, discovers she has a huge number of followers on her Instagram account, where she posts photos of her ʻartʼ: Shibari, the Japanese practice of bondage. Through the dialogue – and the conflict – between the two women, the audience is lead to reflect on intertwined topics: what is a good use of social media? What does it mean to be feminist? What is the limit between expressing and overexposing oneself?

    And, finally, what is art? In this dense play, not only is the audience caught in the net of discussions. The movements on stage are mainly vertical, with climbing and tying as the visual metaphors of the intricate debate around the contemporary world. Even if not always in harmony, the visual and the spoken element are complementary to this play, and give birth to the final, beautiful scene.

    Courageous and daring, the two women who wrote and perform the show are determined not to convey a certain message, but to bring on scene different positions and the changes one can provoke in the other. Even if some strong scenes could be misunderstood, they fit in the main discourse of the play. It could be smoother, but it is a powerful and memorable show.

3^rd – 25^th August 2019, 6 pm

Running time: 1 hour

Summerhall – Demonstration Room (Venue 26), 1 Summerhall, Edinburgh EH9 1PL

Tickets and Info: https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/everything-i-see-i-swallow

Company website: https://shashaandtaylor.wixsite.com/swallow

Twitter: https://twitter.com/shashaandtaylor

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shashaandtaylorproductions/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/shashaandtaylor/