The Endling is an intriguing piece that has a tough message all wrapped up in its funny, quirky, performance style. It revolves around a simple idea: how would you feel if you were the last person (an Endling) on your last day on Earth? Devised by Jane George, Matthew Simmonds and William Moore for Strange Futures, The Endling takes an offbeat trip into the subject of species extinction. The show imagines the small, nondescript details of daily life on a devastated planet. And it is these details that encourage us to see just how life changing species extinction—all species, not just our own—on this planet of ours, could be.
The Endling begins simply enough. A man lies inert on stage, and seems to be sleeping. Another man enters, and is surprised to find him. He had thought he was the last man on Earth. Through a series of questions, we learn that the first man has lost his memory, and — just as significant —he has forgotten the names of everything. The second man attempts to help him. “What’s your favourite colour?” And then the realization. “Where’s all the green gone?” and then “All the birdsong has gone.” Clearly, something catastrophic has happened. The performers turn to the audience and explain that the narrative they are performing is not linear. But they are going to present a story about the last ten years in which everything has disappeared. And they are going to reinvent language to tell this story. Apparently humans — “the two legged ones with frowns on their faces and crispy skins” — are to blame for all this disappearance. From this beginning, Simmonds and Moore embark on a wild and wacky journey—often told from various animals’ points of view.
The ways in which Simmonds and Moore enact their story in The Endling, turning themselves into animals, and even song and dance men at one point, is quite wonderful. The dialogue is inspired, and revolves around a whole series of running gags about reinventing language to describe creatures who have forgotten who they are. The Endling ends where you’d expect—on the very last day of existence—but the whole show is a captivating trip designed to make you think as well as chuckle. If there’s a weakness in The Endling, it comes from a few moments where the energy begins to flag. And that’s hardly surprising when you consider how much material this company has packed into the script.
The Endling is about the right length for a touring show, and it’s sensitively created for a variety of audiences. It’s a great jumping off point for discussion about species extinction, and should be a popular choice for venues looking for a show of this kind. Recommended.
Reviewed 6th August 2022
by Dominica Plummer
For dates and venues for all Fringe shows, click on the image below
“a fascinating piece, even if it requires patience at times”
Yoshika Colwell’s haunting reminiscences of her grandmother’s knitting — together with the sounds of knitting needles gently brushing together — will linger with audiences long after they leave the Demonstration Room at Summerhall. Invisible Mending is a multimedia piece composed of the spoken word, singing, written words from diaries, and carefully curated sounds composed and produced by Max Barton of Second Body. Barton is also on stage, accompanying Colwell on the guitar. Both artists work seamlessly together during this seventy minute exploration of creativity inspired by grief. In Colwell’s case, the grief is especially poignant, because it is all tied up with being far away from home, in the middle of the 2020 pandemic. Invisible Mending is a show about many things, but it’s primarily about losing the two things that hold Colwell’s world together—her grandmother, and her music.
What holds everything together in Invisible Mending are the sweaters that Colwell’s grandmother has spent her life knitting. Even the most reluctant recipient of a hand knit sweater is very conscious that these sweaters—often ill-fitting—are important for Granny’s legacy. Colwell brings one on stage to show us. It’s full of holes, but Colwell, aka Yoshi, does not know how to repair it. As part of her tribute to her grandmother, Yoshi makes a commitment to learn how to knit—and to repair the holes in the piece that her grandmother has left her. As she learns these new skills, she finds that they are inextricably bound up with rediscovering her music. She interviews family members about Granny’s knitting, and the recordings of these interviews are also added to this multi-layered piece. She discovers that the sweaters are an important part of her family history.
There are also other, more ambiguous memories at work in Invisible Mending. As Yoshi acquires her new skills, Invisible Mending becomes about much more than honouring a beloved ancestor. As Yoshi slowly learns to knit, and to recover her voice, which she lost while on tour in Australia, her inspiration leads her to much older, mythical places. She sees how the humble skills of knitting and mending connect her and her grandmother with figures who could be identified as the three fates of Greek mythology. Always imagined on a distant shore, Yoshi speaks with their voices; acts out the spinning, measuring, and cutting of the life of a human being. But instead of seeing a cut thread as just an ending, Yoshi sees it as a hopeful connection to an as yet unrealized future. We watch her hold up two pieces of severed thread, and twist them together. The two pieces of thread once again become one.
Invisible Mending is a fascinating piece, even if it requires patience at times. It does not reveal its story in linear ways, and some of the connections may seem as tenuous as the fraying sweater we see on stage. But Colwell and Barton are an intriguing partnership who play to each other’s strengths. They build something entirely unexpected out of personal memories, and the mundane things of everyday life. Invisible Mending is, among other things, a lesson in learning how to create, but also how to mend, as things fall apart. Colwell takes all these things —her music; her knitting; family memories—and weaves them together in a complex experience that presents hope in loss, and utility in grief.
Reviewed 5th August 2022
by Dominica Plummer
Photography by Max Barton
For dates and venues for all Fringe shows, click on the image below
