Fringe review: Here We Are
An exercise in stripping storytelling back to its barest of bones, Emma Beech’s Here We Are is an intimate and subtly emotional theatre experience that reaffirms the importance of the Fringe festival format. ★★★★
In a tiny upstairs room that only half manages to muffle the rattling of buses down on Currie Street, theatre maker Emma Beech stands in front of her audience — a full house, which totals about twelve people.
She, like the dozen audience members looking up at her, has very little idea what will happen next.
Here We Are is an hour of storytelling, during which Beech uses input from the audience as prompts. On Saturday night, one person in the front row mentioned their beloved family dog, inspiring Beech to recount a tale of a canine impostor in her family. Comments about spring sparked Beech’s childhood memories of Easter, which curdled into a story of domestic violence.
There is an obvious intimacy and generosity baked into the format. In mirroring the audience’s thoughts and feelings with stories of her own life, Beech is highlighting the most fundamental tool of theatre — the exchange of energy between audience and performer. But she employs an important sleight of hand; her openness, her calm and relaxed affect, and her comfort with unresolved emotions are what carry this exchange. Beech’s performance creates the atmosphere and tone of a balanced conversation, but it is — of course — she who is shouldering all the weight.
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The trust Beech builds is an essential element of the show’s success. The phrase ‘audience participation’ strikes dread into many hearts, but Beech’s version is genuinely non-exploitative; she takes only what is offered willingly and never uses it for laughs, except maybe for those at her own expense.
There are, inevitably, moments when Beech’s composure wavers. Unsure of where to turn next in a story, or if she’s offered enough contextual detail, doubt flashes across her face. This is a double-edged sword. Interestingly, it raises the spectre of the difference between Beech’s (and, reflexively, our own) performative and actual selves. It briefly punctures the hard-won sense of safety among the audience, but it also underlines Beech’s enormous vulnerability on stage and deepens the emotional resonance of the show.
Complete with a biscuit break, Here We Are is a low octane piece of theatre that probably only makes sense when presented at a Fringe festival, where audiences suddenly and mysteriously become willing to take a punt on the unknown. In this case, the punt is delightfully worthwhile.
Here We Are is playing at The Box, Arthur Arthouse until March 2