The first of its kind in the world, Summerhall’s Sauna Theatre offers one of the most incredible experiences you’ll ever have in a theatre or a sauna.
Listening to Virgina Woolf’s 1931 novel The Waves, you get the very strong sense that Woolf herself likely fancied a good sauna.
Summerhall’s Sauna Theatre is this year’s talk of the town at Edinburgh Fringe. There’s nothing quite like it. In fact, it is the first of its kind in the world. One can only hope that the creative team – director James Grieve and designer Lucy Osborne – have patented the heck out of it, because I’m sure the rest of the sauna-loving world will shortly catch on.
As it is more of an embodied theatrical experience in which a relative amount of personal higiene and physical preparation is involved (especially as it might be one stop of many on a theatregoer’s daily Fringe itinerary), I’ll start there.
I’m a regular sauna-goer, so I was expecting the usual basics when it comes to sauna amenities: cold showers to rinse off at beginning and end, maybe a cubby to store my belongings nearby, maaayybe a desk with a limited number of towels for hire. I’ve been to some pretty dank saunas (which also have their own special place in my heart), so even the absolute basics were in question here. My expectations were not high, and I prepared for the bare minimum, bringing no valuables with me but my phone, a water bottle, my own sandals, and a towel. I arrived in my swimsuit too, assuming changing rooms were a privilege, not a right. But what I was met with at the Sauna Theatre utterly blew me away.
There are spacious numbered lockers with numbered keys on convenient coil wristbands (you can wear them in the sauna), a huge shower area (with free body wash!), private changing huts, and plenty of flip flops you can borrow. They had towels for hire at £3 a pop and an insanely delicious fermented drink called kvass – small-batched and based in Edinburgh – on tap at the bar. (The Original flavor is a dark brown. I had my doubts. Then I tried it. I no longer have doubts. In fact, I am now subscribed to the company’s newsletter.)
All in all, you’re taken care of – physically, mentally. Everything is sorted for you, so when you step inside the sauna, all the stuff that doesn’t really matter can fade away.
The sauna is large. So large, in fact, that it can hold eighty people. If you had doubts, like I did, about how hot it would get, let me dash those for you now: it’s hot. It’s a state-of-the-art sauna. You sweat. I actually got a better sweat on in there than I do in the sauna my family built in our backyard at home (yes, I’m that into saunas). Two Aufguss masters give you the the sweat of your life over three huge stoves in three acts (each one is ten minutes long), each with three different, intentionally curated essential oil scents.
So when a beautiful, haunting, audiobook-worthy recording of Virginia Woolf’s The Waves pipes through the sound system, the subwoofers beneath the benches allowing you to feel every rush and vibration of water, you’re transported – maybe not to the sea, explicitly, but at least to an inner place that feels safe and peaceful. As you listen to the interior monologues of each of Woolf’s six characters, you become aware (as Woolf intended) of the ways in which, as individual and as separate as each of us are, we are still all connected. Somehow. Miraculously. In the Sauna Theatre, you’re nowhere else but Here and Now.
The Sauna Theatre is featuring a whole host of different events at the Festival – some regular, some different every night. Frankly, I don’t think you should worry too much about which one you go to. Don’t sweat it. Just go.
Show Listing: https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/aufguss-x-the-waves
LISTINGS INFORMATION:
Venue: Summerhall Courtyard
Dates: Aug 6th -31st
Time: 15:00
Ticket prices: £26.50 / concession: £23.00
Fringe box office: 0131 226 0000 / http://www.edfringe.com
Suitable for 18+