Three performers with long hair stand on stage in front of a large curtain displaying the word 'FATE' in bold letters, illuminated in green lighting. The banner 'ACT I' is displayed above them.

Review by Marina Funcasta

Summerhall – Dissection Room

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 5 out of 5.

In both style and substance, PHILOSOPHY OF THE WORLD screams feminism. Loudly. But a messy, chaotic, hilarious kind – precisely what trio, Nora Alexander, Dora Lynn and Kat Cory, try to distance themselves from in the opening of their performance.

A proper, organised three-act play, they say? Almost too good to be true for the all-female company, In Bed with My Brother. Instead, we receive a sixty-minute show split into three segments with arbitrary, though characteristically histrionic, one-word titles. The first act, ‘FATE’, predicts the future of the girl band, The Shaggs, through the eyes of their manager x father. Having had their future told by a fortune teller, the patriarchal force underpinning ‘fate’ becomes the driver of the first half of the show; it is only with his death that our trifecta is allowed to a true taste of freedom. And God, is it explosive.

Not a strict biography by any means, PHILOSOPHY OF THE WORLD does take issue with an important and pertinent power dynamic in the industry. As seen in the Britney Spears conservatorship debacle, owning one’s brand is particularly hard for women led by the guise of a male-dominated backstage industry. These thoughts are touched on in the third act, where after a sequence of shotgunning Diet Pepsis, drums being thrown onto the stage, and screaming matches with their Stage Manager, Nigel Barrett, the rants disentangle into chaos. All I can say is this show awoke something in me, which is hard to do for a 11pm performance: like a freshly opened can of Diet Pepsi, this show is effervescent and bubbling at the brim with anger, wit and vitality.

Explosive

PHILOSOPHY OF THE WORLD ran at Summerhall – Dissection Room
Running time: Sixty minutes without interval

Photo Credit: FOTOMETRO: Rona Bar and Ofek Avshalom

Review by Marina Funcasta (contact@corrblimey.uk)

Marina is halfway through an English literature degree at Edinburgh University, wherein she has been (considerably) involved in the drama scene: enjoying performing with their Shakespeare Company shows, but also modern takes on Arthur Miller. However, Marina’s interests are wide-ranging under the theatre genre – enjoying abstract, more contemporary takes on shows (with a keen interest in Summerhall)

A young woman smiling while sitting at a table in a restaurant, with a decorative wall panel behind her. She has a plate of food in front of her, alongside glasses and a phone on the table.

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