Mission Drift

THEATRE
Mission Drift
Traverse Theatre (Venue 15)
5 stars *****

YOU DON’T NEED TO BE MORE THAN TWENTY YEARS OLD to remember a time when the idea of America – “the world’s only superpower” – still bestrode the world like a colossus; but now, it seems the colossus is toppling, or at least crumbling at the foundations.

So this is the perfect moment to welcome back to Edinburgh the young TEAM company of New York, with their mighty new show Mission Drift. The company’s name stands for Theatre Of The Emerging American Moment; the trademark of their work is a fierce, endlessly creative willingness to try to understand the stories and the meaning of their own country. And their approach to theatre makes no concessions to any traditional idea of what this art-form should look like. Their narratives roam the centuries and interweave at breakneck speed, and the stage looks as if it’s been set for an ambitious music gig; there’s a white piano, an on-stage two-piece band, and a ferociously kittenish cabaret singer-cum-pianist who also plays a key part in the drama.

As for the story – well, this is the tale of the young United States itself, embodied at one end of its history by Joris and Catalina Rapalje, two 14-year-old Dutch migrants who arrive in New Amsterdam 1624, and proceed, while mysteriously never growing any older, to colonise, people and exploit across the whole mighty continent, for almost 400 years; and at the other by Joan, a casino waitress in Las Vegas, who has just lost her job in the 2008 financial crash, and is in danger of also losing her home. There’s craziness, invention and poetry in the telling of how Joris and Catalina’s healthy pioneer spirit morphs into the madness of unbridled 21st century capitalism, until it finally reaches its shuddering moment of confrontation with reality, in what is now one of the epicentres of America’s property crisis; and the show is driven along by a magnificent, hard-edged cycle of songs, by pianist, singer and composer Heather Christian.

And there is, too, a passionate love for the landscape, the wildness, the beauty of the great continent Joris and Catalina came to conquer. It’s best embodied in a beautiful performance from Amber Gray, as the cocktail waitress who just loves the city Las Vegas once was; but brilliantly sustained by this whole eight-strong company of performers and creators, and cheered to the echo by an audience who know that America’s physical frontier has gone, but who can recognise the thrilling frontier of 21st century theatre, when they see it.

Joyce McMillan
Until 14 August
p. 281

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