EIF: The Pulse

Edinburgh Playhouse - 08/08/22

Beneath the audience buzz, a wordless celestial choir and a low ominous boom, foretaste of the evening’s soundscape. Edinburgh Playhouse, UK’s biggest theatre, in all its dingy grandeur, approaching full house. 

Black set, white stripes on the floor. A voice counts 1-2, 1-2, a figure enters, lies down, then another. The counting reverses: 2-1, 2-1. More performers, the numbers sung reach 5. A hint of boredom, but it’s a signature for the whole show: build expectations, dismiss them, build again, surpass them. By the end of this opening sequence, the stage is filled with more than 60 performers, a girl choir all in black end in a line upstage, the gymnasts in various shades of beige and grey. They start to climb with ease on each other’s shoulders, dropping off with equal lightness; then towers of three, they crash to the ground invulnerably, but they never do the four or five we are expecting. No equipment, just lithe athletic bodies of every shape and size. 

Solo dances, writhing contortions, threatening crowd moves, agile leaps and falls; more energetic dance gymnastics than I can put into words. No story line, but great feeling, expression, development. The song surreal, mostly wordless, choral lines with electronic booms and bangs, hints of Pink Floyd, African Sanctus, Kraftwerk. Halfway, a conductor emerges from the line-up, her arm movements part of the ballet.  

Suddenly chorus and gymnasts intermingle and start chattering, loud, vehement. Ropes, which have been hanging discreetly in the auditorium, are grabbed by the team, swung onto the stage with elaborate looping. From now till the end we expect some kind of weight-defying ropework across the theatre space. It never happens. Instead, the white ropes mingle with lighting to create intriguing patterns across the stage-picture.  

Some of the movement is at floor level, thumping flat-out onto it with no ill effect, writhing and somersaulting across it like insects in pain. There’s formation crowd work, a manic Changing of the Guard. Much climbing onto, dangling off one another, in pairs, in trios, in groups. At one point two human towers teeter across the stage; a voice says, “I think something dangerous is about to happen”, bringing a nervous laugh from the audience, but no, the performers gently descend, sliding smoothly to the floor. Other humorous moments include one performer testing the weight of his foot on another’s stomach as the partner lies on the floor; it elicits a protesting grunt. This builds till half the company are parading on the stomachs of the other half, each one grunting a different grunt. 

In the final climax several towers are built, not with one player atop but with foursomes, upside down; the towers conjoin; then one clambers to the very top. Is that the promised number 5? 

As I leave the theatre, a neighbour has seen me taking notes: 

“Are you reviewing?”  

“Yes” 

“Have you seen things like this before? Do you still get a thrill from it? 

“Oh yes, when it’s done so well, oh yes!”