**** (4 stars)
“A Gripping Piece of Theatre”
Another brilliant two-hander at Roxy Boxy, a container just outside Roxy itself. A tribute to the exellence of the show came from an overheard comment afterwards – “you were gripped even though you could clearly hear the people outside: it simply didn’t matter…
It certainly was no effort at all to concentrate on Prophets. Jack McGregor has written a gripping exploration of belief and its dark side, set on a fictional island in Polynesia, St John [not to be confused with the very real St John in the Virgin Islands in the Caribbean!].
A young woman has arrived on the island after a very long and complicated journey. She is tired, and not particularly interested in the attempt at a friendly welcome offered by Kiwi-accented Joe. She’s a paleoclimatologist, doesn’t respond positively to his comments about the weather – she’s not a meteorologist – and isn’t interested in joining him later for a beer in his accommodation just up the hill: all she wants is to rest.
Joe has seemed rather uneasy – his friendly overtures somehow ring false. We begin to have concerns, too, as we witness the attempts our heroine, whose name I failed to write down, to find out about the history of the settlement of St John. Documents are sealed off under the Official Secrets Act. National security has strategies to protect the island. But what about its inhabitants? They are all descendants of the crew of a ship that landed on the island and promptly burned it, because they were never going to leave…
We learn a bit more about Joe and his visitor. Joe was born on the island, went to work in New Zealand, but then came back to the island under rather mysterious circumstances. She grew up in a small fishing community in Scotland but now lives and works in Glasgow. She asks a lot of questions – increasingly about the new sections she finds in a bible in her accommodation, which talk about the Prophet and the miracles he works. They were written by God, Joe tells her.
Joe’s elliptical utterances about the temple, the services held there, the things he’s seen, all intrigue her. She has phone conversations with her partner back in Scotland in which she reveals her conviction that all is not well on the island: he tries to convince her that she’s imagining things and should leave well alone…
Will she? Is it all real, or a figment of her imagination, triggered by her own past history?
Prophets is a gripping piece of theatre, superbly acted by Rebecca Wilkie and man of many talents Xander Cowan, who plays everyone else, switching accents and persona with great ease. In an age where the cult of personality is pervasive, the play raises questions about belief, imagination, control and manipulation, truth and reality…
Yet another brilliant play from an upcoming Scottish writer – is there no end to Scotland’s emerging talent?
It’ll be another sell-out: hurry, get your tickets before they’re all gone!
Prophets, The Fringe, Assembly Roxy (Roxy Boxy) Venue 139, Runs Until 31st August for more information go to: Prophets | Edinburgh Festival Fringe
ScotsGay Arts 