Summerhall: Winter Season
In the last year, Edinburgh's Summerhall has come into its own, creating a hub where the worlds of art, theatre, tech and eh brewing can collide. Its winter programme offers an array of theatrical darkness, a refreshing alternative to the impending panto
Summerhall's November programme comes to counter the conventional sparsity of programming most theatres go for in the pre-Christmas buildup. While all the rest are trying to prepare for panto season, Edinburgh’s alternative venue takes on a great deal of performance. Of course, being such a big venue, it would make sense to have many things on at the same time.
November finds Summerhall bringing in interdisciplinary multimedia performances ranging from the comical to the dark and hellish. The start of the month finds Dogstar Theatre Company introducing The Tailor of Inverness, Matthew Zajac’s award-winning solo performance about his Polish father covering themes of identity, migration, and war.
A few days later, A Dangerman appears in the Red Lecture Theatre. Described as a tribute to the outsider, Dick Walsh Theatre’s 2012 production takes a look at the 'social terror,' the man who will talk to you for hours although you have no desire to converse. After all, the thing about monologues – especially in the theatre – is they treat silence as consent. What are the consequences of sitting down to listen to one such monologue?
In the same vein, on a much darker and intense spectrum comes Black Sun Drum Korps’ Invokation of Lady Macbeth. Joined by extreme body artist Ron Athey, the company tackle Macbeth through use of the cut-up technique – made famous by William Burroughs and also used extensively by Lisbeth Gruwez in It’s Going to Get Worse and Worse, My Friend. Led by Drum Major Russell MacEwan, and performed in the haunting Dissection Room, this reworking of Macbeth unleashes the darkness within.
Meanwhile, Enough Already / Lâchez Tout takes on the idea of utopia. Through the characters of naïve Bobok and Professor Glaçon, this performance across stage, film, and music seems to try to tackle the tantalising irresistibility of utopias, and the absolute impossibility of their existence. It pulls together different media, and brings together composer François Sarhan, five members of the Red Ensemble, actor Claudio Stellato, and two live sound effect artists, stop-frame animation and film.
Aside from all the cool performances – cos let’s admit it, they sound pretty damn cool – the venue also has educational workshops. 5 November features a workshop on object manipulation in conjunction with BE Festival – more simply, puppetry and how to use objects on stage. The Best of BE Festival performance takes place later on that day, gathering the cream of the crop from Birmingham’s international theatre festival onto one Edinburgh stage.
Overall, Summerhall’s programming may be many things – dark, terrifying, eclectic, mad even – but it most certainly isn’t boring. Previously the Royal Dick Vet School of Edinburgh, it might be taking advantage of its garish horror-story ridden past, to spook, startle, and amaze you into loving live performance long after Halloween has past.