“Every part of this ingenious miniaturized trip to Mars is shot through with strangeness”
Mary, Chris, Mars presented by the Trunk Theatre Project as part of the Korean Showcase at Edinburgh this year, is an enchanting children’s show. It consists of four performers, three actors and one musician, and a blend of miniature set design and puppetry that will intrigue adults and kids alike. The show is performed in alternating Korean and English, but the quality of the performance skills and the visual elements is uncommonly high. No one will have trouble understanding the story, or the charming pun that gives this show its title.
As Mary, Chris, Mars begins, live music performed by Hahjungki Baek and Jinho Park set the mood. There is an overhead projector on stage, a screen and a mysterious suitcase which opens to show lights representing the planets of our solar system, and the stars. There is a red light, which represents Mars. Mary, played by Yeeun Cho (who also writes and directs) is on a rocket, orbiting the Earth. All this information is presented on screen, via the overhead projector. Mary’s dilemma is that she is bored, and has no friends to share the beauty of what she is seeing from her space ship. It’s also Christmas. (Cue Christmas music.) When a mysterious stranger arrives (Chris, played by Wonjun Ryu), and signals from his space ship that he has run out of fuel, Mary goes to the rescue. After many adventures, the two new friends arrive on Mars (played by Hyeon Park), refuel, and celebrate Christmas together. Mary, Chris, Mars, everyone!
Mary, Chris, Mars is a perfect child sized view of the universe. It reveals itself in the suitcase; the transparent umbrella that opens to display a mobile of planets circling around, and so many other whimsical, yet brilliantly designed features that illustrate this simple tale. Straightforward it might seem at first glance, but the whole show has a quirky sophistication that will appeal to the most experienced theatre goer. Each moment is a revelation — from the gloves that turn into hand puppets bouncing through Martian gravity, to the actor’s body that becomes a spaceship. The actors create their universe the way children do — by picking up everyday things around them — and transforming them into the engines of their imaginations.
It’s a bit of extra work to keep track of the constant switching between English and Korean, but it’s very appropriate. Every part of this ingenious miniaturized trip to Mars is shot through with strangeness. Seeing Mary, Chris, Mars through the lens of two very different languages gives the story a deeper significance that one alone could not provide. Mary, Chris, Mars is the most surreal space trip you will ever take. Like all memorable trips, it leaves you with images you won’t forget. Mary, Chris, Mars is also quality theatre. Here’s hoping we get to see more work from the Trunk Theatre Project in the future.
Reviewed 9th August 2022
by Dominica Plummer
Photography by Sein Park
For dates and venues for all Fringe shows, click on the image below
GHOSTS OF THE NEAR FUTURE at Edinburgh Festival Fringe
★★★
“performance art fans will be intrigued by Ghosts of the Near Future, and won’t be discouraged by the disparate and random elements in this show”
Ghosts of the Near Future promises “a show about extinctions, climatic, cultural, civilizational” in this newest offering by performance artists Emma Clark and PJ Stanley, aka emma + pj.
In sixty minutes, the audience in the Demonstration Room at Summerhall is treated to a rather muddled mashup of what is described as magic realism. Ghosts of the Near Future gives the impression of an incomplete encounter with too much popular American culture. The show is entertaining from moment to moment, but it’s a struggle to connect it with the theme of extinction on quite the scale suggested in its promotional material.
Extinction is a big theme in this year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and with good reason. As scientific forecasts about species extinction, climate change, famine and plagues grow ever more disheartening, it’s important that artists tackle such big subjects. Art can illuminate data in ways that science cannot. What’s good about this piece by emma + pj is that, in a series of short scenes, Ghosts of the Near Future takes us out of the depressing reality of the near futures we are all facing, and presents us instead, with a dream of theirs. Spoiler alert: emma + pj’s is not any more cheerful, ultimately, but it’s a lot more fun to look at.
Clichés about the American West abound in Ghosts of the Near Future. Those who have been there can confirm that yes, it’s hot, and yes, it’s empty. If the point of all this is to show that the future of our planet may well look like Nevada, then yes, emma + pj are onto something. But how does the magic realism approach work with this? Why conjure up images of Las Vegas? To remind us that the showbiz glamour of this desert city is just a mirage? Is the point of this connection to make us realize that the achievements of our planet might one day been seen as just a magic trick, a dream? For generations of young people growing up amidst the ruins of the American Dream, I guess that’s true.
Ghosts of the Near Future is populated with white rabbits, magicians and showgirls. The imagination is caught, moment to moment, by enlarged images projected onto a screen, of plastic figures jumbled together in a glass tank; by pj’s sparkling magician’s jacket, or by emma dressed up as a showgirl holding a gasoline filled martini glass. The details can be captivating. Magic tricks do get performed, and there are some neat effects with cameras, lighting, sound and dry ice. Nice work by scenographer Georgie Hook and sound designer Patch Middleton.
All these details do not, in themselves, illuminate the theme of the show. Maybe the intent of Ghosts of the Near Future is to do this through playfulness, but the title of the show suggests otherwise. It is diverting to drift along with these likeable performers as they move through magic shows and various mythical encounters in the Nevada desert. As drifters know, however, such encounters are shot through with uncertainty. What did we really see?
Nevertheless, performance art fans will be intrigued by Ghosts of the Near Future, and won’t be discouraged by the disparate and random elements in this show. If that’s the case for you, go and soak up the experience, rather than trying to figure out its contribution to the subject of climate catastrophe.
Reviewed 9th August 2022
by Dominica Plummer
For dates and venues for all Fringe shows, click on the image below
