Rift @ Traverse Theatre

Gabriel’s Fringe Survival Tips #2: don’t let yourself get hungry before seeing a show, as you’ll get emotional.

One of the reasons Rift by Gabriel Jason Dean has held me in such an imaginative stranglehold since I watched it is because it’s actually about everything. Brotherhood, fatherhood, cyclical abuse, systemic abuse, the power of literature, the space between reality and fiction, durability, desperation, betrayal and money. I don’t tell you this as a bingo card of spoilers, but as a lifeline through the frequent gut-punches delivered by this play.

Matt Monaco is the Inside Brother imprisoned for, in effect, ever yo-yoing through supremacist radicalisation. Blake Stadnik is the Outside Brother who prioritises his own social ascendancy over his brother’s acquittal. 

Their language changes. In the first scene, they’re so clearly of a pair. But as the year tally sickeningly goes up, as Outside Brother proceeds in academia and Inside Brother falls into his so-called ‘pro-white’ ideologies with a so-called ‘brotherhood’ (oh the irony), they begin to speak different versions of English. One moment discusses how right-wing elites perpetuate racist anti-liberal nationalism to divide the proletariat and prevent community action, now well-documented by political journalists. The capitalisation of hatred explored here is terrifying and neither brother is immune.

It’s difficult to think objectively about such a raw play, and reviewers in the past have misinterpreted triggering plays precisely because they trigger. And, although I had not had lunch the day I saw Rift, the play made me forget I hadn’t eaten, it was so captivating. The play appeals to the necessity of critical thinking, and as such the lighting, sound and projections – by Justin Townsend, David Lanza and Lauren Nychelle respectively – combine into an intense and isolating experience, where audience members (or at least, this one) experience the story not as a communal experience but individuals with different powers in society. Once seen, unforgotten.

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Rift, Traverse Theatre (Traverse 2), until 24 Aug (not Mon), various times, £17.50-25 (further concessions available)