Pool (No Water) by Mark Ravenhill
Performances 5 – 10 August, 21:00 The Royal Scots Club
Tickets £12 https://tickets.edfringe.com/
Four struggling bohemian artists. A pool.
They have a friend who was plucked from obscurity and is now renowned, respected and rich. She has a pool in LA now – that kind of successful. It’s fantastic, fantastic, fantastic… Until one booze-fuelled skinny dip leads to a terrible accident.
Mark Ravenhill’s dark, witty comedy explores how jealousy can tear apart relationships and cause old friends to do the unthinkable.
Director Abbye Eva (God of Carnage, Wonderland) revels upon the blank canvas that is Ravenhill’s script. With no guidance but the words themselves, Eva and the cast have created a humorous and occasionally uncomfortable confrontation with the unfortunate, that explores those feelings we’d rather not acknowledge and how we justify our worst actions to ourselves.
Eva says,
“I first came across “pool (no water)” in university and loved the language, the playfulness of the script and the freedom it gives to directors and actors alike. I didn’t truly understand the raw emotion behind it until I read up on the concept of Status Anxiety – the fear that our peers are much more worthy than us by society’s standards. It’s that little pang when you find out your friend has moved into a house that’s bigger than yours, or that colleague bought that fancy new Audi. It’s that horrible feeling that we are being left behind in a race that doesn’t really exist. It’s a feeling that we’re most often ashamed of, but it’s one which each one of us can relate to in some way. Gore Vidal sums it up perfectly – “Whenever a friend succeeds, a little something in me dies.””
EGTG has a keen eye for Edinburgh’s best burgeoning talent, and are delighted to welcome newcomer Ross Cairns to the group and the Festival Fringe, along with returning performers Steven Croall, Debi Pirie and Eilidh McLaughlin. All four actors are looking forward to testing their mettle with this production, with each of them appearing onstage for the full length of the show; exposing the actors just as equally as the character’s they have created.
★★★★☆ Cruel but hilarious
All Edinburgh Theatre
“The venue is exquisite, the cast are tight-knitted and talented, and the production provokes thought. This show has a short run at the Fringe, but it’s worth making time to see.”
EdFringeReview
“This four-man spectacle explodes across the stage… There is a physicality to the group’s humour and a sense of wildness to how they perform.”
The Wee Review
EGTG 