YOUR GUIDE TO EDINBURGH'S FESTIVALS
This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
ED2013 3/5 Reviews ED2013 Dance & Physical Theatre Reviews
Echolalia (Jen McArthur & Kallo Collective)
By Holly Sharp | Published on Saturday 3 August 2013
If hoover attacks, shortbread and invasion of personal space don’t ruffle your feathers, this might be your kind of thing. Jen McArthur plays a lonely woman with Asperger’s syndrome in a 1940s wasteland, accompanied by sparse possessions, rituals, rehearsals for job interviews and social engagements that never happen. ‘Echolalia’ was conceived after McArthur was “tickled by the social ‘weirdness’ of autistic children”, a discovery that it’s difficult to feel entirely comfortable with. Although magnificently performed, you have the niggling sense that this isn’t the most balanced, responsible account of Asperger’s syndrome. There are one or two moments which address more serious implications, but these are quickly overshadowed by impeccably executed buffoonery. A whimsical, fantastic spectacle, dogged by dubious moral implications.
C aquila, until 26 Aug (not 12), 3.40pm.
tw rating 3/5 | [Holly Sharp]
