Anna Burnside reviews the latest A Play, A Pie and A Pint offering.
It’s Scarlet’s 21st birthday. To mark this momentous occasion, her mother has bought her an iceberg. As you do.
The opening scene, with the two surveying the gigantic chunk of ice and reviewing the damage it has done to the kitchen, works well with a series of stepped reveals.
Then Scarlet’s girlfriend, Judyth, arrives and the plot proceeds with the subtlety of the Titanic.
The budget constraints and short timeslot of PPP mean their productions are often formulaic, but this is predictable even by its standards.
However, Laura Harvey does a good job as Sarah, the super-needy mother who will purchase a chunk of Greenland if it means her only child will spend more time under the same roof.
Alice Glass is a spirited Scarlet, running out of sympathy for Laura, desperate to start living. If she would have preferred a handbag, she is too polite to say so.
The weakness is the script, which captures the characters well at a micro level and has some funny lines but fails to make the transition to eco-tragedy that the subject requires.
There’s a good play to be written about an iceberg in a suburban kitchen, but this isn’t it.
Ivor is at Oran Mor’s A Play, A Pie and A Pint until April 12, 2025. It then performs at the Traverse Theatre from April 15-19.
Photo by Tommy Ga-Ken Wan.
RSS