Burnout Paradise @ Summerhall

A mix of theatre, teamwork and collective endurance, Burnout Paradise is a very physical look at what modern life expects of us, and what we're able to give

Review by Rho Chung | 09 Aug 2024
  • Burnout Paradise

Australian company Pony Cam have set themselves a truly monumental challenge this month. Burnout Paradise is a project for four performers and one host. The group is given a series of tasks corresponding with each of four treadmills. While running on these treadmills, the cast relies on the audience's help to get it all done. Rotating between the treadmills, the cast does all kinds of burnout-inducing things: on one treadmill, a meal is prepared. On another, cast members desperately rush to stuff every possible leisure and self-care activity into the allotted time. 

From start to finish, the piece is infused with ecstatic group morale. In the audience, we want them to beat their personal distance record so, so badly, and we're all shouting and running around trying to help them do it. It's undeniably chaotic, but it's also a tightly woven, meticulously practised feat of coordinated effort. If anything, it's a cry for help. 

The treadmill dedicated to leisure activities is by far the most stressful to watch (for me at least, some might say it was the one with the boiling pasta), and it requires the most audience intervention. Together with the other treadmills, which drone and thump in a constant soundscape, it's a (very) physical representation of what is demanded of us – artists especially – and what we are able to give. 

One of the simplest and boldest aspects of the piece is how directly the cast members ask for help. "We're kind of relying on it," one says at the beginning. In a world structured so that there will never be enough of anything, sometimes you have to shout from a whirring treadmill that you need someone to peel an onion for you. 

As the cast tries to beat their personal record for distance run every show, this is as much a month-long project as it is a repeating show. It's an environment where it's easy to laugh. Even though it's stressful to watch, I feel so much lighter afterwards.


Burnout Paradise, Summerhall (Main Hall), until 26 Aug, 12.05pm, £17