@ New Town Theatre, Edinburgh, until Sun 30 Aug @ times vary
Powerful, evocative, and at times brutally barbaric, Immersive Acting Movement’s Comfort Slaves – a collection of interconnected stories, predominantly about politics and class disparity – is a fine example of why Scotland’s capital city boasts the greatest festival in the world.
Appositely staged in a subterranean kitchen, the seven strong cast jovially antagonise the audience, immersing them in this fictitious, but true to real-life, production, about corruption, conspiracy theories, and that horrible reality that is the monotony of everyday existence.
The most frightening thing about today’s society, is that we seem to be living in a contradiction – things like having a good credit rating actually means being careless with your money, and petty thieving is deemed more heinous than rape or paedophilia. So why do we not speak up? Is it because we’re afraid of the system – the system that is corrupted through financial power and despotism? How can it be ethical for the minority to control the majority? How can it be moral for people to be homeless, when others are living off “the fat of the land”? And what long-term effects do mendacious newspapers and social media sites have on our thinking?
At points humorous, at other points inhuman, the really wonderful thing about this edifying production is: no matter how uncomfortable, unbearable, unendurable, or even merciless the picture portrayed by some of the scenes is, one certainly can’t question the authenticity, actuality, and truth behind every word.
A direct and forthright eye-opener – so edgy that the honesty about our perilously wavering society continues to whisper in your ear, up the stairs, following you home, ominously. If we’re not careful, it will turn the oppressed into the oppressor.