As the weather warms up, we’re heading into Edinburgh preview season, with many acts trying out their material before heading up north. Persona is one such show; directed by Olivia Woods for the Namesake Theatre company, it’s showing at Islington’s King’s Head Theatre ahead of a run at the Fringe. Unfortunately, while the cast are a confident ensemble, Max Allen’s script feels in need of a bit more comedic and dramatic bite.
The setting of Persona is a little gothic: four old schoolmates are brought together at a far-flung country estate to read the will of a recently deceased friend. James is the executor of the estate and the odd one out of the four – he’s recently returned from Army service, while the other three are typical public school stock (as posh as the names Gemma, Jeffrey and Rupert would suggest). When James explains a strange clause in the dead man’s will, it pits the other three against each other, dredging up hidden tensions and old grudges.
Persona will be the second Edinburgh outing for Namesake and the cast will be more than up to the task, with an already strong chemistry that will no doubt bed in further as the run goes on. In the dialogue’s sparkier moments of back-and-forth – and there certainly are some – the performers make the most of the material.
Perhaps they play the parts too well – they have the characters’ posh entitlement down to a T, but it only serves to make them more insufferable. This is a world of “darling”s, “old boy”s and “Bahamas with Mummy”. The caricature is recognisable enough, but a grating one, and too broad for the jokes to pack any real punch.
Meanwhile on the dramatic side, the tension too often feels unlikely, built on too thin a premise. It’s hard to buy, for example, the conflict that arises when the schoolmates are left to decide how to split the fortune between themselves; the script doesn’t offer enough to stop you wondering why they wouldn’t just agree to an even split straight away. Equally hard to swallow is the romantic dynamics between the foursome, which flip-flop unconvincingly.
The whole affair ends in a fairly bizarre climax; it’s certainly shocking, though it’s somewhat hard to tell if the intention was to be funny or dramatic. It offers a culmination of the show’s allusions to ‘Persona’, a game played by the four at school – though the game’s mechanics are never properly explained to us, which rather muddies the waters. Perhaps it’s elusive by design, but it’s confusing nonetheless.
The team at Namesake clearly have a good creative rapport, and there are moments in Persona that hint at greater things. But it’s a show that needs more fine-tuning to hit the right notes, both comedically and dramatically.
Listings and ticket information can be found here
