Paul T Davies reviews The Death and Life of All of Us playing at Summerhall as part of the Edinburgh Fringe.
The Death and Life of All of Us
Summerhall, Edinburgh Fringe
3 Stars
This autobiographical show is a love letter to Victor Esses's great-aunt Marcelle, who he first met when he was 19. She had moved from Lebanon to Italy, Judaism to Christianity and kept a secret for life. Using his recordings of her, he creates a documentary piece about a woman he clearly felt close to
The main issue I had was the poor sound quality of the videotapes, I struggled to hear what was being said. To that end, I didn't know or understand what her big secret was. Captions were provided for other areas of the show, but we really needed them for the tapes. This is a technical issue that can be worked on if the play develops.
There are other areas that were more successful. Esses is a sensitive storyteller and connects with the audience well, and I enjoyed his dance of freedom and identity at the end. I also enjoyed the music by Enrico Aurigemna. The different elements of the show need to be weaved together more successfully, and it felt very much like a work in progress.
Paul is a playwright, director, actor, academic, (he has a PhD from the University of East Anglia), teacher and theatre reviewer! His plays include Living with Luke, (UK tour 2016), Play Something, (Edinburgh Festival Fringe/Drayton Arms Theatre, London 2018), , (2019), and now The Miner’s Crow, which won the inaugural Artist’s Pick of the Fringe Award at the first ever Colchester Fringe Festival 2021. In lockdown 2020 he created the audio series Isolation Alan, available on Youtube, and performed online in the Voice Box Festival. He is the founder member of Stage Write, a Colchester based theatre company, and his acting roles include Rupert in How We Love by Annette Brook, first performed at the Vaults Festival 2020 and revived at the Arcola and at Theatre Peckham in 2021. Follow: @stagewrite_
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