Lions, playing at Summerhall, comes from the award-winning American company Lightning Rod Special, the creative team behind the Fringe First-winning Underground Railroad Game. Written and performed by Scott R. Sheppard and Alice Yorke, and directed and developed by Sarah Blush, this mad, hour-long piece of absurdist theatre takes a deep dive into the surreal chaos of losing the lion in your life: your father.
Both Sheppard and Yorke experienced the deaths of their fathers in the same year, developing this production as a direct response to those painful moments spent waiting in hospital limbo and trying to sort out the physical detritus of a life, write a eulogy and come to terms with their relationship with their fathers.
As the audience enters, the duo are busy arranging random items along a long table and lighting candles. Dressed in outlandish suits, a regency jacket and dodgy wigs, they step into stylised impressions of their fathers, sticking on moustaches as the finishing touch. Through these scattered objects, we hear how their fathers ended up in hospital and begin revisiting their lives.
The clowning and physical comedy throughout Lions sometimes falls flat, occasionally leaving the audience confused about what is going on. I never worked out what the sudden snowstorms represented, maybe a portent of disaster? However, it is impossible not to be charmed and engaged by the sheer exuberance and physical comedy of this partnership. Sheppard and Yorke brilliantly utilise theatrical movement to mirror the absurdity and disorienting haze of grief: the endless lists of people to thank, the tedious mundanity, and the painful telephone calls. But it does jump around and at times it feels overly indulgent and not driving forward the narrative.
Yet, the production sparkles with clever imagery, such as creating the body lying in a funeral parlour with golf clubs for legs, a basketball for a head, and surrounding candles. Mercilessly honest confessions emerge as each father’s flaws are laid bare.
The most affecting sections arrive when the performers address us directly. By the end, the actual recordings of their fathers’ voices and the brutally honest eulogy of the ‘reality’ of who their father was to them, really cuts through all the theatricality.
I did enjoy Lions but more for the performers’ skill and magnetic presence. I’m not sure it hangs together as a scripted play as it feels too disjointed and chaotic.
Listings and ticket information can be found hereÂ
