Writer: Mark Vigeant
Director: Joanna Simmons
In this wonderfully inventive show, Mark Vigeant plays Larry, a 37 year old engineer, who ventures into the Alaskan Wilderness armed only with a camera, a satellite phone and primitive instruments for shooting the wild animals he intends to survive on. He’s recording the experience so that he can put it up on You Tube and get one on over all those other would be explorers that have been nowhere near as brave or reckless as him.
Over the course of an hour the nature he connects with comes in the form of basic props imaginatively used and audience participation as people are enlisted to become moose, bears, fish, lakes and more. The use of a video camera and constant projection of its footage as it is recorded adds an additional layer, while the occasional details revealed about Larry’s backstory help to explain what becomes an increasingly desperate attempt to connect with the environment and battle with the emotional breakdown that has led to him embarking on his mission to begin with.
Relying on audience members to play a role in the show by willingly making fools of themselves can always be a risky strategy, but everyone he chooses recognise that they are crucial to the shows success and embrace the moment, occasionally hesitating but never backing away thanks to the way Vigeant draws everyone into the madness being played out and makes Larry both convincing and a caricature of everyone he is modelled on. Joanna Summers excellent direction holds all of the different strands together and enables Vigeant to realise the full potential of his ideas for the show.
There are some dips in the increasingly manic energy of the show and a feeling at times that this is more a series of very amusing sketches rather than a cohesive whole, but when something is as gloriously ridiculous and over the top as Out There is, any shortcomings do not distract from one of the most imaginative solo shows in this year’s fringe.
Runs until 30 August (not 19th)
The Reviews Hub Star Rating
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8
