Lorraine & Alan, Pleasance Dome

By E.L. Hardy

You may attribute the popularity of minimalist, simple story telling at the Fringe to the financial, technical and practical limitations that go hand in hand with producing a show here. Slotting your play into an awkwardly shaped black box (which you share with as many as twenty other companies trying desperately to do exactly the same) is no mean feat.

Equally, you might argue that these limitations are, conversely, the enablers of extreme artistic liberation - catalysts for the imagination. With fewer rules (or people willing to abide by them), not to mention audiences consisting of theatre enthusiasts, there is a greater possibility that the pattern in which your brain-child is spattered onto the blank canvas will be appreciated.

For some companies, the limiting and liberating Edinburgh Fringe is, simply put, a perfect fit.

Bucket Club’s ‘Lorraine & Alan’ by Nel Crouch and Becky Ripley, is couched in the comfortable normality of one average guy’s life: Alan. The introduction of Lorraine into Alan’s world (Blakeney, Norfolk) and Lorraine’s lovable determination to fit in, exposes a grating and persistent discontentedness - the sort that invariably rears its ugly head as a result of trying to be a someone that you are not.

The moral of this story is simple and familiar: To thy own self be true. But, as time moves ever onwards, does living by this proverb feel increasingly unpractical? Idealistic? The play repositions the moral, re-affirming and re-establishing it within the context of contemporary society. It asks us to reconsider the fundamental requirements of a content human existence, the rules that begin to slide or are taken for granted alongside Western development, and the gradual but continuous shifting of society’s values. How much do we sacrifice of ourselves in order to fit the mold, or in the name of love?

Theatre and literature have long drawn inspiration from myths and legends, the Bible or the Greeks, referencing well-known stories in order to add textured layers of meaning and remind us of something forgotten. Lorraine & Alan, a modern Selkie myth, stems from early Celtic mythology and folklore, and yet the story of ordinary boy meets extraordinary Selkie (half woman, half seal) is a contemporary one. Time has moved forwards, but the moral of this particular myth remains greatly relevant. Alan rescues Lorraine from the rocks. She is elated, like The Little Mermaid's Ariel, optimistically finding her feet upon dry land. But during her transformation, something is lost. Not lost - buried. Lorraine is gradually reduced to a list of anecdotes and data. Not even her name is her own. Ultimately, the truth manifests itself in a series of uncontrollable, psychological problems.

A nautical metaphor extends breezily through the play's lexicon, made up of narration delivered in direct address and scenes with more elliptical dialogue. There are seamless transitions from one to the other, subtly invocated by nuanced shifts in the lighting designed by Cassie Harrison. Water then consistently features in Nel Crouch’s staging; characters are represented, at first comically and then tragically, by different sized bottles of water.

Spellbinding performances, expert comic timing and some dapper dance moves from Adam Farrell as Alan and Katie Sherrard as Lorraine, ensure the audience are invested throughout. In addition to this - shipping us to the world of the play with a bombardment of aural stimulation - are two musicians. From an onstage desk, David Ridley and Becky Ripley create a soundscape in the style of a radio drama to accompany the plot, including effects at the mic, voice manipulation and atmospheric acapella arrangements of songs. (There's even a cheeky rendition of Kiss From A Rose by 90s legend … Seal).

Bucket Club's Lorraine & Alan exemplifies lucid and transformative storytelling for the Fringe. It teases us – permitting us to dip only one toe at a time into the waters, until we are suddenly submerged - left to drown in the tragic reality that, sooner rather than later, Lorraine will have to do what she has to do. “In the havoc, she finds sanctuary,” while we are left to ponder in puddles of our own realisations.

Lorraine & Alan,

Pleasance Dome - Jack Dome

Daily at 13.30

★★★★★

@postscriptjour

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