Part Macbeth, part Inception, and part Waiting for Godot, The Plot at Summerhall, Main Hall (up the winding staircase), produced by theatregoose, is a classic small-budget Fringe two-hander drawing on a wide range of source material mashed up to see what happens. However, this incendiary narrative, like many postmodern productions, takes time to fully light.
Two brothers, Tom and Robin, find themselves in purgatory. They’ve been there for a while, getting bored playing games with matches, sending the smell of sulphur and ash cascading through the audience, even after the sticks have been doused in nearby water buckets. Existential questions lead them to guess where in the realms of the afterlife they might be, and Rob finally decides that they must give in to some unseen impulse, and (re)enact the Plot.
Over the next 70 minutes or so, the compact ensemble of Sophie Kean and Abby McCann don the costumes and the mannerisms of those who judged and sentenced Rob and Tom to death for coming up with (apparently the 15th) attempt on the life of King James. The pair play types constantly against each other: the King and his Prosecutor, the Lead Actor and his young Female Lead (a teenage boy in this time), Rumour and the Public, and more.
Writer-director Emma Howlett draws extensively on Shakespeare’s Macbeth while wrapping the rest of the world in real history and lovely conjecture (for example: an alleged lost Shakespeare play about a prior assassination attempt on King James). Costume and props designed by Ellie Wintour feel inspired by the literal darkness of Game of Thrones. Attire is pulled from a chain-laced gallows rack hanging centre stage and then discarded in a massive ash pile just beneath, completing the circle of the plot’s failed attempt to bring some kind of righteousness back to England by showing it to be rubbish. The rumbling dramatic score by Sarah Spencer and the extreme light and dark contrast in the lighting by Ed Saunders support the righteous wrongness of the two brothers as they reenact their downfall.
There are a small number of tricks missed in this production. The process of peeling layers of reality back takes too long to get started, perhaps like the gunpowder that failed to light. It is unclear why the brothers decide to reenact characters. There are anachronistic references to troubled young men (in our time, specifically, incels and their violence). The show runs a bit long, but there are just a few too many characters which are not fully realised onstage.
Still, The Plot will leave you questioning political retribution and your own political stance, which is the beauty of metaphor. Check it out at Summerhall’s Main Hall.
Listings and ticket information can be found here
