Eva Seymour delivers a sharp look at how easy it is to neglect your needs within an industry that likes to assume you don’t have any.
Eva Seymour is an outstanding performer and an inventive writer. Her one-woman show The Understudy takes the panic and helplessness of dedicating your entire life to the potential of a ‘big break’ and transforms it into a beautifully constructed performance. Seymour has incredible stage presence – from start to finish she is impossible not to watch. She could have easily told her story simply and chronologically and this alone would have made for an engaging play. However Seymour is more creative than this, lacing the show with a highly compelling undercurrent exploring if we ever manage to exist in a genuine manner, or are always performing to someone, even if only to ourselves.
She utilises a self-tape style projector and camera and writes some very interesting time jumps into the fast-moving script, forcing us to look at her story from several angles that refuse to sit still. Throughout, the moments where Seymour’s face was projected behind her at a disjunct to the expression she showed us in real time were very well chosen, providing a moving layer of emotional understanding to the unfolding action. Seymour uses her space wonderfully, bringing to life a range of characters and spaces in vivid detail – whether or not we are familiar with ‘the actor’s life’ she is critiquing, Seymour’s audiences can fully enter her world.
The Understudy balances playful moments and self-depreciating humour with heavier and more pointed observations of a highly faulted industry. A crippling desire to control the uncontrollable and to prove your worthiness through overcommitting to a creative lifestyle with very little payoff are explored both accurately and sensitively. While the subject matter of this piece is niche, I am sure there are many creatives at the Fringe who will find real solace in someone speaking out about the issues Seymour confronts.
Seymour is a joy to watch and her work should absolutely be on stage for everyone to see – I am so pleased she has taken matters into her own hands to ensure this is the case.
SHOW LISTING: https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/the-understudy
LISTING INFORMATION:
Venue: Assembly, The Box
Dates: Aug 5th -30th (not 12, 18, 24)
Time: 12:15 (1hr)
Ticket prices: £15.00 / concessions £14.00
Fringe box office: 0131 226 0000 / http://www.edfringe.com
Suitable for 14+