This show is weird. Somewhere between scientific lecture and performance piece, it’s about using art to control people. It’s interesting, and unsettling, since it never tells you how seriously it’s taking itself, but at the same time, very flawed. It explains the method behind their technique – regulating the production of a chemical in the brain called MAO-A – and the basic purpose- to make people less violent – but nothing that’s specific enough to make it seem meaningful. There’s also a problem with staging. If it’s trying to be a lecture, then it makes sense that it should be performed in a lecture theatre, as it is. But instead it’s directed like a play, and so again, it’s ill-defined, confusing, and difficult.

Summerhall, 11-26 Aug, 3.30pm.
tw rating 2/5 | [Katherine Cunningham]

Sections: by Katie Cunningham - ED2012 Theatre Reviews - tw rating 2/5 | Tags: Summerhall, The Mechanical Animal Corporation

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