SUITCASE SHOW at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe

★★★★★

“takes a bunch of second hand materials of all kinds, and creates magic with them”

New Zealand Company Trick of the Light Theatre has made a career out of performing shows that leave as small an environmental footprint as possible. Suitcase Show shows how they remain true to that commitment. Everything is either second hand, or created from commonplace materials. Even the technical wizardry is economical, and designed to lessen the weight and number of personnel that had to travel to Edinburgh. As the show opens on a dimly lit stage, it’s not surprising to see a heap of battered suitcases neatly packed together. One is already opened, and inside, a record player’s turntable is slowly revolving as music plays. As more suitcases are opened, complex worlds in miniature emerge. And complex, intricate, life changing stories emerge alongside all this amazing design. But there’s an even bigger story tying these worlds together. The Traveller (Ralph McCubbin Howell) is at border control in an airport, facing a simultaneously bored and hostile baggage inspector (Hannah Smith).

What happens next is predictable enough. The baggage inspector tells the Traveller to open his suitcases. He refuses, but drops some unsettling information. Not only did The Traveller not pack them himself, he’s not even sure what’s in them. He repeatedly warns the baggage inspector that she won’t like what she finds. She doesn’t back down, even though her two colleagues are too busy playing cards to help. (They’re off stage, but we see them on video, played by Anya Tate-Manning and Richard Falkner). With one final warning, the Traveller opens a suitcase. It shows what looks like a diminutive Christmas village. With houses gradually lighting up, and a screen that shows silhouettes of tiny figures interacting inside one house. You could be forgiven for thinking that this is going to be a heart-warming Christmas story. You would be wrong.

No spoilers here, and I will only say that each suitcase reveals a different world, uniquely designed, with different performance skills to illuminate the tale. One story is told through the medium of two hands enacting the complete life story of two strangers who meet and fall in love on an airplane. Another uses shadows to tell the story of a bear, a train, and an escaping autocrat. You get the picture. What you won’t get, initially, is where this is all going, apart from the fact that it seems to be a series of loosely connected stories about traveling. And while we are being enchanted by all these suitcases and their stories, there is a more macabre drama brewing. When the Traveller’s identity is finally revealed, it will seem both offbeat, and somehow deeply appropriate. There’s also a grim video showing what happens to baggage checkers who ask too many questions. It that isn’t karma for all the times we’ve been stuck in airports going through baggage checks, I don’t know what is. I do know I won’t be asking searching questions of my fellow travellers any time soon.

Trick of the Light Theatre confirms that there is no end to the funny, quirky, deeply unsettling drama that has been emerging from New Zealand lately. And where would New Zealand films be without the extraordinary design and special effects that have revolutionized the industry? In its miniaturized, environmentally conscious way, Trick of the Light is doing something similar for theatre. Suitcase Show takes a bunch of second hand materials of all kinds, and creates magic with them. Director Hannah Smith and writer Ralph McCubbin Howell make a show from an absurdly mundane location and situation—equal parts humour and horror. But it’s the battered suitcases that reveal truths about life and death lurking in places you shouldn’t look. Then again, look you should, because every suitcase shows a story you won’t want to forget.

SUITCASE SHOW at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe – Summerhall – Old Lab

Reviewed on 13th August 2024

by Dominica Plummer

Photography by Rebekah de Roo

SUITCASE SHOW

SUITCASE SHOW

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