The Event

“Stop me if you've heard this one before,” announces an unidentified man from the stage. The audience remains mute and, true to the script's intention, the show goes on uninterrupted.

From the confines of an arts festival saturated with retellings of popular classics, multiple productions of the same show, theatrical adaptations of successful movies and ropey student drama, this introduction proves a breath of fresh air, hinting towards the promise of surprise, originality and innovation. Indeed, there are few more appropriate occasions than during the Fringe in which to stage The Event, a one man dissection of theatre as a form and of the role it fulfils in modern life.

The play is curious in that audiences believe they know more about his character immediately after the curtain has been raised than they do following actor David Calvitto's assured, 60 minute monologue. John Clancy's uncompromising script is an exercise in shattering theatre goers' expectations, denying them the comfort of escapism.

As Calvitto explains and acknowledges the motives and reasoning behind his every action on stage, his assertion that the most outwardly spontaneous and sincere of gestures are, in all probability, premeditated and cynical at their core, creates bracing moments of dramatic unease. Bravely, audiences are forced to question the validity of the entertainment they have paid to receive, as well as to recognise the existence of such casual falsehoods as a prominent part of their lives.

That The Event delivers intensely human meta-theatre while posing such questions in a production which is heavy on laughs is a serious accomplishment.