BOOK OF MOUNTAINS AND SEAS

Edinburgh International Festival

★★★★

“a piece that is uniquely modern, despite multiple traditions from the past that have inspired the work”

Composer Huang Rho, puppeteer Basil Twist, and Ars Nova Copenhagen bring an innovative contemporary opera to the Royal Lyceum Theatre as part of the 2025 Edinburgh International Festival. Book of Mountains and Seas is a UK premiere produced by Beth Morrison Projects, which specializes in the creation of opera and new music theatre. Basil Twist directs a multi-talented ensemble of puppeteers, singers and percussionists in this contemporary opera on environmental themes linked to classical Chinese mythology.

Book of Mountains and Seas is also the title of a large collection of Chinese myths that were written down about 2500 years ago. For this opera, composer and librettist Huang Rho picked four myths from the collection: The Legend of Pan Gu; The Spirit Bird; The Ten Suns, and Kua Fu Chasing the Sun. The first is a Chinese creation myth explaining the meaning of yin and yang; the second about a princess who drowns in the sea and becomes a bird to take revenge; the third, a continuation of the creation story in which ten suns, living in a mulberry tree, threaten the survival of the earth and have to be reduced in number, and finally, a myth about the giant Kua Fu who gets too close to the sun. These may seem rather perplexing narratives until you realize that Huang Rho and Basil Twist are creating a contemporary myth of their own, drawn from ancient sources. A mix of Chinese culture and echoes of more modern, western, cultures. A myth in which ancient stories are reimagined as larger than life figures rising up or swooping about the stage, each with a tale that reveals the fragility of the creatures in the environment we call our world.

Basil Twist and his puppeteers have created a series of abstract, sculptural figures, made out of silk, paper lanterns and driftwood. The dexterity of the puppeteers to move these figures, together with the spare, yet precise choreography of their own movements, produce a performance that integrates perfectly with the equally spare, sculptural quality of the sounds that Huang Rho has composed for his singers and percussionists. Huang Rho’s libretto connects the past with the present (even the future?) with words that are both Mandarin and a language he has invented. And the ease with which Ars Nova Copenhagen produce these sounds is a result of their vocal experience with the past and present: Renaissance polyphony, and new choral compositions. The overall impression of Book of Mountains and Seas is a piece that is uniquely modern, despite multiple traditions from the past that have inspired the work.

For some, the aesthetic of this work may seem almost too austere. It is, after all, a piece that encompasses creation myths in all their diversity and richness. In the Basil Twist/Huang Rho imaginings, the world is collapsed into circles from which mythic creatures arise. The stars are likewise confined within a circle at the back of the stage. The colour palette is sparse in the set design, though this does accentuate the shapes and colours of the driftwood and the lanterns. The silk that plays the ocean becomes a canvas for any number of marine dramas playing out in its constantly moving waves. The faces of the singers are similarly reduced to just circles that sing, their bodies shrouded in black, echoing the puppeteers. Only at the end, when the giant Kua Fu’s walking stick becomes a shower of peach blossoms, do brighter colours emerge. The lighting of designer Ayumu ‘Poe’ Saegusa turns up the heat, and the daylight, for the final moments of the show. The show moves at a pace that remind us that world building is rarely a speedy process. The sounds, and the Chinese characters that are projected from time to time on a variety of screens, are not designed to anchor us in a conventional narrative. Instead, we snatch at hints in sparse lines in English, announcing the emergence of a new scene.

Book of Mountain and Seas is a remarkable collaboration between some of the most innovative and exciting artists working in puppetry and contemporary music theatre today. It is a piece that requires some patience. But it’s an important event that serves to remind us of how innovative artists can be when confined only by the limits of their own imaginations and creativity.

BOOK OF MOUNTAINS AND SEAS

Edinburgh International Festival

Reviewed on 14th August 2025 at Edinburgh Royal Lyceum Theatre

by Dominica Plummer

Photography by Andrew Perry

BOOK OF MOUNTAINS AND SEAS

★★★★

“an intriguing piece, and certainly inhabits new territory for adaptations”

A prequel to Shakespeare’s Hamlet comes to this year’s Edinburgh Fringe, courtesy of Poland’s Theatre of the Goat (Teatr Pieśń Kozła). This is Hamlet as you’ve never seen it, although never heard it, might be a better description. This work is all about the impressive singing that is the distinguishing feature of this company, under the direction of Grzegorz Bral. In sixty minutes or so in the Main Hall at Summerhall, Hamlet – Wakefulness provides a full throated meditation on “wakefulness”. As director Bral explains before the show begins, it’s an awakening to the imagined events on the night that old King Hamlet dies. It is also a mourning, a “wake” for the old King, two months before the events of Shakespeare’s play begin.

Teatr Pieśń Kozła’s was founded in the late 1990’s in Wrocław by Bral and Anna Zubrzycka. It often takes classics by Shakespeare, Euripides and others as a starting point for its explorations. Supported by anthropological and ethnomusicological fieldwork, the company focuses on ancient rituals. These rituals focus on polyphonic laments. Over the years, the company has developed its own specialized techniques for training the voices of its performers, and the result is a distinctive sound that provides great insight into the sacred practices of ancient cultures.

It’s important to approach Hamlet – Wakefulness through the music, rather than the play. Other than a few references to speeches such as “Oh what a rogue and peasant slave am I” and a defamiliarization of familiar characters, there’s not much relationship to Shakespeare’s Hamlet. This is not so much a drama, as a liturgy, or even an opera. What catches our attention at the beginning of the show is the setting. There’s a hint of a bed for old Hamlet to lie in state upon, and silver chairs with a vague nod to Scottish symbolism in design, and cleverly constructed to hide swords. The only musical instrument on stage is the Swedish nyckelharpa. This production is nothing but eclectic in its sources for inspiration.

The production hints at Hamlet, no more. We are introduced to Gertrude and Hamlet in a sketch of the closet scene, and it’s Gertrude’s scene, make no mistake. “Hamlet is mad” she proclaims at several points, and her declaration successfully sidelines her son in favour of her new husband. When Claudius isn’t confronting someone in the cast, he is conducting the chorus—often at the same time. And in any case, a hint of Hamlet is fine, because the singing is remarkable. It may well have its origins in the laments women have sung at wakes since ancient times, as director Bral explains, but the music will also remind you of the chants of monks. There is a profoundly spiritual feel to this version of Shakespeare’s story of incest, murder and revenge. Best to let go of expectations, and just lose yourself in the song.

Hamlet – Wakefulness is an intriguing piece, and certainly inhabits new territory for adaptations from Shakespeare. If choral singing is important to you, and you’re intrigued by the idea of a Polish performance company that is justifiably celebrated for its unique approach to ancient music and classic texts, you’ll get a lot out of this show. You’ll carry the sound, and the spirituality, out of the theatre, and on your journey home.

Tag Archives: Dominica Plummer

BOOK OF MOUNTAINS AND SEAS

★★★★

Edinburgh International Festival

BOOK OF MOUNTAINS AND SEAS

Edinburgh International Festival

★★★★

“a piece that is uniquely modern, despite multiple traditions from the past that have inspired the work”