Words: Alex Grunberg

4 Stars

“Why does everything have to have a reason?” A security guard has a strange encounter with a woman in a park at night. She is dressed like a ballerina, making paper swans. She cannot stop until she is done. And by terrible chance, now he is part of it, too.

This absurdist play is confident in what it is and sits neatly in the world of “Waiting for Godot,” “Zoo Story,” and “No Exit,” with its mix of the surreal, the human, the nightmarish, and the inevitable. The performances are heightened, purposefully unnatural, and I had the uncanny feeling that I was watching a puppetry show, with meticulously structured characters designed to be broken by the chaotic arc. While the style of the play may be unsettling to some audiences, those who come in with the expectation of absurdist theatre will find two confident professionals skilled in their artistry weaving a tale that dips
unexpectedly into horror.

It is off-kilter and discomforting, thought-provoking and compelling, intelligent and complicated, as the audience searches for sense in the senseless. Because there is no sense, no reason to be found here, wherever “here” may be. The play. The theatre. The Fringe.

Everywhere.

There are only Paper Swans.

Paper Swans
Pleasance Courtyard, Upstairs
11:05
Aug 13, 15-25