BOX CLEVER

by Monsay Whitney.

This is everything I want from theatre. Thank god nabokov theatre is leagues above my personal tastes, excelling in stagecraft, writing, and performance they transform the most simple motifs into a spectacle that exemplifies everything great about the Fringe. I’m probably just enamoured with the festival again since this was my first show  of the year but I’m certain after the giddiness wears off I’ll still be raving about Box Clever. It’s a work so electric and upsetting by it’s non-conclusion that I wasn’t jolted out of a daze until the curtain call. While the play has no ending and it is all the more affecting for it. When Marnie, our put upon South London heroine, is screaming herself hoarse at an indifferent social services clerk, the only impulse is to scream with her until the lights go out.

It’s also a  play filled with clowns and no-one touches each other. The juxtaposition of a clown in a women's housing project is funny and disquieting but not as disturbing as the lack of contact between the characters. In one of the extreme moments of the play, when all you want to see is a gesture of affection, someone to reach out assure the other it's okay, the play denies you even that. Though Box Clever is a story of abuse, understanding, and helplessness, Marnie never touches any of the people around her. Box Clever is a work of deep, human intimacy with no human contact.

produced nabokov theatre and The Marlowe

Roundabout @ Summerhall Venue

RUN ENDED