Red Like Fruit @ Traverse Theatre

Gabriel’s Fringe Survival Tip #1: If you attend a show alone, sit next to someone also attending the show alone and become best friends. I sat next to Wendy, who plans to watch every Traverse Fringe show this August – and in all fairness, you probably could go to the Traverse for a day, watch everything and then go home and be artistically sated for the rest of August (other Fringe venues are available).

Wendy and I watch Red Like Fruit with no real idea of what we are about to see, so when Lauren (Michelle Monteith) introduces us to Luke (David Patrick Flemming), who is going to tell her story, we are immediately on watch for the show's hidden surprises.

Red Like Fruit is a quietly radical piece of theatre. Lauren gives up the authority of her story to a male voice, but the audience is pretty much transfixed by what the story is doing to Lauren. Raised by Kaitlin Hickey’s design on a simple dais, Lauren fidgets, yawns, flinches, and sometimes interrupts her own story. Luke, meanwhile, is weighed down by the hefty responsibility of not only caring for a story which isn’t his own, but telling it with fidelity and compassion to an audience who may well judge him for doing so.

Hannah Moscovitch’s script has the straightforward address of journalism, from which spring layered and astounding performances directed by Christian Barry. Whilst Luke recites and Lauren listens, neither are ever inactive, both deeply affected by the story. Hearing an authentically female story from a male voice is unnerving, but it also helps demolish the gender empathy gap – in this way, the personal becomes political as Lauren’s story delves into the grey areas of sexuality and violence.

At the end of the play, I turn to Wendy. ‘So. Was that real?’ I asked. Wendy laughed, but observed: ‘If that’s what helped Lauren, then that’s wonderful.’

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Red Like Fruit, Traverse Theatre (Traverse 2), until 24 Aug (not Mon), various times, £17.50-25