In the Land of Eagles @ Pleasance Courtyard

It’s usually hailed as an 'affordable' travel destination, or the target of xenophobic cliches about drugs and migration. In Alex Reynolds’ debut show In the Land of Eagles, Albania becomes more.

Reynolds’ show is an autobiographical exploration of her family heritage as a third-generation immigrant. Clad in denim dungarees, Reynolds narrates her experience as an 18-year-old travelling with her ailing grandfather to his homeland of Albania. And while rolling hills and stunning beaches feature, so does the country’s history of occupation, 46-year dictatorship and strained deciphering of national identity post-1990. 

Reynolds and her grandfather are an unlikely duo, spending time hungover in a museum of communist-era surveillance, brushing shoulders with the mafia and charming countless shop owners. They root into our hearts. Even as Reynolds plays both parts – all the parts – they feel satisfyingly distinct and infused with her affection.

Reynolds is an animated, charming performer, never letting you linger on a laugh or a weightiness too long before pulling you along to the next petrol stop. Everything in her world is scintillating and full of poetry, punctuated by truths about her family that she can’t, in a teenage tendency, laugh off. Still, the show is hilarious. Her mastery of these tonal shifts is a pleasure to watch.

In the Land of Eagles guides us through Albania through the lens of a narrator who insists she can’t claim the identity as her own – yet, we as an audience watch her carve out a corner of her heritage infused with all the longing and guilt of the diaspora. No matter her proximity to her grandfather’s culture, she makes sophisticated points about family and the responsibility of memory. She explores how a loved one can live in a world inaccessible to you, and the gall it takes to ask about it – even to enter. 

The show composite is both a rallying cry to throw caution to the wind and a diasporic gut punch about what can happen when you do. It’s in the final five minutes that through a remarkable twist, the show’s message comes into focus. In these last five minutes, Reynolds transcends what we have come to know of her – her emotion grounded and sober. Our tender-skinned teen has grown up, and few in the audience are left without tears.

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In the Land of Eagles, Pleasance Courtyard (Baby Grand), until 25 Aug, 3pm, £14-15