Showing @ South Leith Parish Church, Edinburgh, Wed 15 – Sun 19 June

Alistair Rutherford’s new play The Garden is a fairly unassuming and quaintly understated one. Taken on by director Keith Hutcheon and Peapod Productions, it’s a masked depiction of natural fragility clashing hard against the mechanised human compulsions that govern family institutions.

As married couple William and Anna (Simon Tait and Kirsten Maguire) enjoy a relaxing day in their back garden, James (Philip Kingscott), a strange and fairly ghostly character strolls into their estate. Apprehensive and hostile at first, they come to comfort him after being told he has just walked from his mother’s funeral. As their son Alex (Martin Haddow) returns home however, the family struggle against each other as to the treatment of James, and before long, one of the boys is forced to leave.

Unfolding in the slight tranquillity of the South Leith Parish Church ‘Secret Garden’, there’s a sheltered natural poise which befits the style of this piece. Obviously the play’s title seems a prerequisite for site-specific theatre, but the action takes place around the audience and at times it’s a setting which comes to juxtapose the bitter arguments and casual profanity embedded in the text. As wasps fly into glasses, gusts of wind rustle the actors’ clothes, church bells sound in the background, there’s an aura of uncontrollable chaos which underpins the play’s investigation of interconnected lives and passionate family establishments. Yet it’s hinged on an element of safety provided by the concrete walls of the venue, welcoming the audience to some sort of sanctuary where acceptance and love dominate threatening intensities. When it comes down to it, this is a refreshing, luscious piece which oozes with sophistication and classiness, both nimble and delicately constructed.