No one who’s seen the Aussie act Steen Raskopoulos would associate him with trauma-as-comedy. While Richard Gadd and Hannah Gadsby won awards for their soul-bearing shows about sexual violence, Raskopoulos just kept on supplying blithe character-comedy about mournful horses, bank robberies and interpretive dance. But his latest show, Stay, pulls back the curtain on what we thought we were getting from Raskopoulos: not multi-role solo comedy but ceaseless voices in an unhappy man’s head; not (as per his signature sketch) faux-sentimental scenes about abandoned kids, but cries for help.
The moment in Stay that first implies this is beautifully handled. But I’m not sure Raskopoulos’s sad story has quite completed – or ever will – its transformation into comedy. The latter stages are terribly raw; the 31-year-old ends the show in tears. There’s no seeming catharsis in the telling, or sense of why he’s telling this story now.
It’s no surprise now when clowns publicise their tears – and get noticed for it. One nevertheless feels huge sympathy for Raskopoulos, and respect for his bravery in bringing this material to the stage.
Initially, it’s concealed behind the story of a police interview, as hard-nosed cop grills timid suspect. Scenes splinter off – many of them plaintive even by Raskopoulos’s tender standards. Long before the reveal, his sketch about vulnerable Timmy’s ejection from another kid’s party, or another about a heart-breaking phone message, are far more sad than funny. Elsewhere, the audience participation is hit-and-miss: a word-association bout with a man in Row B requires major legwork from Raskopoulos to even resemble comedy.
Livelier is his trailer for spoof movie The Bad Boy of Yoga – or that startling moment when impro convention collapses into psychological intimacy. The floodgates open; comedy can’t contain Raskopoulos’s pain any longer; it all pours out, flowing towards only a very tentative redemption in the show’s intimate finale. Emotional nakedness is the keynote. Resolution is out of the show’s reach. Laughter, finally, has little to do with it.
• At Underbelly Cowgate, Edinburgh, until 26 August.
• Read all our Edinburgh festival reviews.
