To procreate or not to procreate? That’s the question around which Theatre Ad Infinitum’s new show anxiously circles. It’s a decision that couples have long agonised over. And today, on a warming and precarious planet, it’s a conversation that’s becoming increasingly public and fraught.
For George Mann and Nir Paldi, it’s not a choice they were always sure they would have. We might be used to hearing guilt-ridden liberals agonise over whether to bring new life into a troubled world – think of Duncan Macmillan’s Lungs or countless newspaper columns – but Mann and Paldi’s decision as a gay couple has an added layer of worry and uncertainty. Can they cope with the prejudice that two dads still face? Are they just buying into heteronormative aspirations? Is it what they want, or what they think they want?
Mann and Paldi dance – literally and metaphorically – around these questions. The show peels back its makers’ desires and motivations, while at the same time dissecting its own process. In the past, Mann and Paldi have taken turns developing shows for the company. This, their first equal collaboration, has all the messiness of two people negotiating their relationship and their different ways of working. Paldi interjects. Mann demands more emotional intensity. They both keep pausing, asking whether this is working.
As expected from the company behind Translunar Paradise and Ballad of the Burning Star, there are some striking visual images. The stage is lined with rails of clothes, which are thrown on and off like the imagined possible parenthoods that Mann and Paldi discard. Pacing around a table, they turn an adoption meeting into a fierce interrogation. In dance sequences, their bodies mirror, resist and support one another, translating debate into movement.
But where their most successful shows have crafted a seamless aesthetic, here theatricality feels secondary to discussion. At times, it’s hard to see why this has to be a piece of theatre rather than an article or a documentary. As a conversation, No Kids is compelling, but as theatre it falls short of Ad Infinitum’s best work.
- At the Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh, until 27 August.
- Read all our Edinburgh festival reviews.
