Taverna Miresia – Mario, Bella, Anastasia @ Church Hill Theatre
Mario Banushi's portrayal of his family's grief makes for an absurd and unflinching Edinburgh International Festival production
Warm light falls on Mario Banushi’s wordless portrayal of grief. The Silver Lion winner brings Taverna Miresia – Mario, Bella, Anastasia to Edinburgh, the third installment in his Romance Familiare trilogy about life, death and Balkan family tradition. Set in a white-tiled bathroom, a family comes together to mourn the loss of their patriarch in a series of heart-wrenching and absurd vignettes.
Banushi looks on as four women in his life externalise their grief. Notable among them is acclaimed Greek singer Savina Yannatou, whose wails feel both otherworldly and unflinchingly material as she sings the sole words of the play. Yet even with total commitment from its actors, Sotiris Melanos’s set design and Eliza Alexandropoulou’s lighting design steal the show, casting hazy ambers through portals in the bathroom for our wretched characters to grovel towards. Their careful work knows when to shroud the ugly with beauty, and when to pare back and let us squirm.
A swirl of twisted ritual at the end – including a tortured Albanian “valle” and a feat of irrepressible whirling – is mesmerising. Banushi, the actors and creative team have put together something on the knife’s edge of vitality and decay. From spat food to crawling laments to plenty of nudity, this show is grotesque, and the absence of dialogue means the audience is forced to endure these images without mediation. Some may find Banushi's choices indulgent. For us, his excavation of the heart of grief is rightfully shocking.
The element that calls this shock into question is not the show's outlandishness, but Banushi's character, largely an onstage spectator, and what we miss of him in this role. His perception of the women grieving in his life is almost childlike in its spectacle – but his neutrality undercuts the potential of a compelling subjectivity. To demand so much from his actors, we would hope for more access to Banushi’s motivations. Realising much of its immense potential, Taverna Miresia could still stand to mature, or at least engage in the implications of spectatorship.
Taverna Miresia – Mario, Bella, Anastasia, Church Hill Theatre, run ended.