Mara – Edinburgh Festival Fringe – Pleasance Dome

Mara continues at the Pleasance Dome – KingDome, Edinburgh – until 26 August 2019.

Star rating: three stars ★ ★ ★ ✩ ✩

The New Victorians are an all-female ensemble from Malta. Featuring two musicians on a raised dais upstage, the cast of eight is on the stage floor, making full use of the area in a finely-tuned physical theatre performance.

Taking the theme of women who have had significant cultural, scientific and political influence through the ages, fragments of stories are interwoven together with subtle changes in costume and demeanour indicating individual characters.

Philippa and Bettina Cassar are the talented sister team who have written the piece and perform the music. The score is both theatrically and vocally enchanting, often mesmeric in the lengthy notes that invite a stillness in the action.

One of the story threads is set in a clockmaker’s shop in Haarlem, Holland during the Second World War. The reputation for precision prized by the clockmaker and his family is echoed in the intricate and exacting movement of the ensemble as they depict time passing and moving forwards. The tensions of time are evident in the clockmaker’s family tale of smuggling vulnerable Jews to safety.

Using a range of shapes, positions and movement, the ensemble work is balletic at times in its reflection of the story being told. Creating soundscapes as well as song, there is an other-worldly quality to the overall piece that stops short of becoming emotionally invested in the stories told.

Both lighting and design contribute to the haunting atmosphere, including a section with strobe lighting creating flickering movement.

Stories and figures featured include Helen Keller’s relationship with her teacher, Anne Sullivan. In a particularly distressing sequence there is the moment of wonder when Helen understands ‘water’ in an examination of force for good. This is contrasted against the suffragettes’ story of being force fed to break their hunger strikes in an examination of force used in a different way.

There is an earnest seriousness throughout that suggests restraint rather than freedom of expression. Perhaps some variety in mood could be introduced to elevate this show from a series of stories around a theme of strong women to something more joyous and celebratory – even if only for a fleeting moment.

Fiona Orr