Short stories told by one performer work quite well in the intimate spaces that you find with fringe theatre. Shallowspace Cryotech Feverdream is a sci-fi short from Elastic Fantastic, a queer storytelling group. It’s the tale of August, a person selected to be one of twelve humans launched into space in an attempt to preserve something of humanity’s story, following the collapse of the Earth.
August is mostly frozen in place, left to ‘sleep’ in a highly advanced spacecraft intended to go far into the stars and warn future civilisations of the folly of mankind. It’s an archive of humanity, vainly sent out into the stars in the slim hope that something of our civilisation will survive. August is meant to be woken up once every thousand years or so, perform some safety checks and return to their rest. Of course, all is not what it seems, and things start to go wrong.
Stories like this are incredibly character-dependent, and fortunately, actor Callie O’Brien nails it. They are both believable as a candidate in this strange space program and also as a human being lost in space and time, stranded with no hope of anyone else to talk to. There is some mild body-horror and the story wobbles a bit in terms of tone. Though the story works perfectly fine as it is, we’d have love to have seen a version that had been given more funding.
This sci-fi take on a desert island story, with added climate change and identity messaging, really does work. Engaging and fascinating science fiction, with an incredible performance and an important story. Haunting and well thought out, a wonderful mix of old sci-fi tropes and modern storytelling.
You can book tickets for the Edinburgh Fringe show here and learn more about the creators here.
