@ Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh until Sat 13 Feb 2016

Jenna Watt is a live artist and theatre maker who doesn’t mind suffering for her art. At one moment during the fifty minute performance she has a funnel put down her throat and she almost swallows some unappetising purple powder. This powder is eventually used to create a beguiling and comedic smoke effect. The suffering started earlier in the evening when Jenna painstaking filled her mouth with cornflakes in an uncomfortable and torturous manner. But the most horrific act is subjecting herself and the audience to the music of Phil Collins for several minutes. How You Gonna Live Your Dash is an original and atypical performance bursting with brilliant ideas. It is an imaginative performance from an engaging performer, despite the choice of music.

Jenna is joined onstage by the equality talented Ashley Smith, who helped devise the piece. The performance begins with Jenna taking a microphone and struggling to find words to express herself and the character she is portraying. The result is pure frustration, but this grips the audience and ultimately takes us into a bizarre and imaginative world filled with exasperation and beautiful imagery. The title of the performance refers to an epitaph, where a ‘dash’ is inserted between a date of birth and date of death. This is a symbolic reference to life and symbolism is very much part of the show. At various points the performers let off smoke bombs of purple, lilac and yellow colours. These express the beautiful complexities of life and it is these captivating intricacies that drive the performance forward. Jenna and Ashley take on the roles of characters who are dissatisfied with their lives and look to seize the moment. The narrative is non-linear and we dive in and out of various moments that make up the sometimes satisfying, sometimes mundane and sometimes tragic lives that people live. In many ways the show appears to be about seizing the moment and embracing the future, but this message gets a little lost behind the playful nature of the production. The strength of How You Gonna Live Your Dash is in the imagery and not in the storytelling. A more cohesive narrative may have underlined the themes of the show.

Tonight’s show at the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh is the beginning of the final leg of a short tour for How You Gonna Live Your Dash. Judging by the strength of the performance it could easily justify a longer tour or even a return to Edinburgh for a successful Fringe run. Here’s hoping there is more life in the production and that this is not the end of the road for How You Gonna Live Your Dash.