Created by: Mule Productions
Making a coffin in order to finally have a place to rest even if you have to kill yourself to achieve it, sounds like the starting point for a modern-day existential exploration of the housing crisis gripping Edinburgh even when the Fringe isn’t in town. In Marc Wadhwani and Jules Smekens (aka Mule Productions) Fringe debut, it’s part of a wider exploration of identity, control and life itself that’s combines Waiting for Godot with meta-theatre to create 50 minutes of theatre that can veer off in unexpected directions every time you think you have a handle on where it’s heading to.
Opening as if it’s merely a job, Matteo works diligently designing a coffin with a precision that suggests he could be a craftsman carving out his finest work, while Reggie questions whether the level of concentration is really worth the effort. General banter on what the correct size for a coffin should be and whether it really matters given the occupants awareness of the size of the space they are show a good mastery of comedy before the play heads into darker territory.
Both men are planning to end their lives for reasons unknown or unspecified. The extent to which either of them will help the other or can take the definitive action themselves is explored in a scene that hints at violence but masks a deeper desperation.
It could head down an almost Reservoir Dogs path at this point, but instead it takes a different swerve as it appears that the two are repeating actions they carry out every evening and also that they are not sure why they are doing this or who they are.
Are they actors in a play written by John? If they are, who is John and can they outwit him and take control of their own script? And if they can, what will that actually mean for their future. For all the men could be characters in a play, they could also be real people and the play could be the lives they have little control over.
Wadhwani and Smekens feed over each other superbly as the play develops. The feeling that this is a play that evolved out of a spirit of experimentation and curiosity is matched by the sense that they knew where they wanted it to head and were led by it as it gets more frantic and layered while building to a visceral conclusion.
It’s a show that hints at the start of a creative partnership that can push boundaries and achieve more in the years to come.
Runs until 17 August 2024 | Image: Contributed
