Anna Burnside reviews a production filled ‘with visual delight and technological accomplishment’.
A young woman is in a bleak room. Three cojoined institutional chairs have a ticket machine on one arm. There’s a hanging mic, a pile of clothes, a five-digit numerical display on the wall, and a screen with a “please stand by” flickering in the corner.
Is this a cell, a waiting room, a heavily surveilled psych op? The mystery deepens when an operator stumbles towards a row of monitors at a lower level than the main stage. The pair chat and even flirt, via screens and microphones, in a way that makes Hinge messaging look flowing and relaxed.
As Enda Walsh’s 2016 dance theatre piece progresses through three distinct phases, it becomes a little clearer what’s going on. But Arlington is about mood and atmosphere rather than specifics, using sound and movement to play what-ifs with an Orwellian proposition in a 21st-century setting.
What Glasgow-based company Shotput’s production lacks in plot it makes up for with visual delight and technological accomplishment. Every aspect of the design and soundscape - there’s an excellent change of pace sequence when the young woman dances to the Ramones’ ‘Baby I Love You’ with a mannequin made from the jumble sale pile - is clever and coherent.
The performances are impressive too. Jack Anderson’s dance sequence, linking the two characters’ experiences, is evocative and compelling. Directors and choreographers Lucy Ireland and Jim Manganello also get the best out of Aisha Goodman and Jack Anderson as the two characters.
They have the courage to leave this dystopia vague and weird, full of uncertainty and unanswered questions. Rather like the one we are actually living through.
Arlington performed at the Tron Theatre until October 25, 2025. It transfers to the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh from November 6-8, 2025. For further details, go to the theatre company’s website.
Photo by Brian Hartley.
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