Pickled Republic @ Summerhall

Physical theatre maker Ruxandra Cantir has imagined what might be happening at the bottom of those forgotten glass jars of pickled fruit and vegetables in the back of your fridge. “Welcome to the jar” states a sign as you enter the Anatomy Lecture Theatre, and welcome to the last dying days of the Pickled Republic.  

The episodic, absurdist one-person show that Cantir has created provides glimpses into the lives of the usual forgotten subjects in one’s fridge: a lone tomato holding onto its crinkly and dissolving skin, a potato whose head has begun to bloom with sprouts, even a mother-carrot with her tiny weeks-old baby carrot wrapped in a burlap swaddle. Each character is wholly distinct due to Cantir’s exceptional physical and vocal versatility. Their injections of clever and charming humor into each piece of produce works wonders as the nihilistic warning of complete societal collapse is delivered through the sweet, high-pitched baby voice of the baby carrot. “Everything is brown!” the baby wails. “We are doomed! We are doomed!” 

It's difficult to not peek through this glass jar and recognise the signs of our own crumbling Western society. We too are on the brink of climate disaster, our natural world browning whilst our greed and convenience-first mentality is rotting us from the inside out. The warning offered in this delicious absurdist performance is one we have heard again, and again, and again... but this is (almost definitely) the first time we've have heard it from a singing, glittery potato head. Cantir’s genius is in delivering this warning in a spectacle so funny, so charming, so weird that it’s impossible to put the pickle jar back on the shelf.

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Pickled Republic, Summerhall (Anatomy Lecture Theatre), run ended