Plastic

“It is not social commentary at all.. We just wanted to take this concept and ask what are the different journeys that this person would go through?”

In a Fringe that is often swamped by mediocre productions of established plays, Mehrdad Seyf has discovered a startling story. “There is a lot of news about sex changes going on in Iran, and the patients come from quite traditional families,” he notes. “And the fact that the Islamic state supports access to this is a wonderful paradox - you’d expect the state to frown upon it.”

Plastic examines this phenomena through a mixture of dance and devised performance. Seyf explains, “One of the cast members is from Iraq, and she has brought a quite sensual dance from Iran, but she has contemporised it. All the music is newly composed. We have a song which can be described as vaudeville punk! And there are also my installations.”

His approach is far away from the average Fringe director: “I had more a film training, my influences were mainly directors like Hitchcock and the French New Wave. My work is very much influenced by visual art, and the text is very much secondary. I start with an image and write the text afterwards.”

Chosen as part of Escalator East to Edinburgh 2008, Plastic casts a fascinating and unexpected light on a nation that is frequently in the news. It exists in the space between dance and physical theatre, working in a medium as unstable - and challenging - as its subject matter, and promises an engaged and original entertainment.