The List at Summerhall is a remarkable play by Jennifer Tremblay, performed with intense subtlety by Maureen Beattie.
The plot, initially, is familiar to any mother with more to do than time will allow and a contemporary longing for all things not to do with children. So lists are compiled to cope, routines established, the freedom of Wednesdays (when the children are at nursery) longed for.
But there are shadows in this life, a hint of the obsessive compulsive, and worse, and as the play evolves these shadows grow sharper. This is a story about consequences and procrastination, about how simple things, the slightest of human interactions, can have devastating repercussions.
The play’s incredible power lies in exposing a ’crime’ we all routinely commit, every day of our lives, an oversight, a delay, as being almost as significant to this particular very normal woman, as a cold-blooded murder.
Told with a moving wit and compassion this modern tragedy has the power to truly disturb an audience, made all the more significant by the anatomy lecture theatre setting in Edinburgh, – giving the play a highly focused atmosphere befitting a woman judging herself harshly in the light of events.
The final moments, thanks to Maureen Beattie’s tragic intensity, were so moving as to be almost unbearable.
Five Stars
Submitted by Ade Morris
