In the 1960s, a US research programme led by John Lilly attempted to teach dolphins to speak English. Nasa was looking for intelligent life beyond our galaxy, and the space agency sponsored the research because if it did discover intelligent life it would of course prove necessary to teach them English. (Apparently it didn’t cross their minds to consider whether Americans should try to understand whatever language extraterrestrials spoke.)
Tackling that difficult second show with real confidence, Breach Theatre – who debuted last year with The Beanfield – offer an engaging deadpan satire on the programme, which remains best known for its use of LSD on captive dolphins and because one of the researchers, Margaret Lovatt, lived for a period in close proximity with one of the males, Peter. The dolphin’s distress at this unsuitable environment turned to aggression that Lovatt dealt with by masturbating him. As Breach make clear, both the dolphin – treated as a thing – and the woman – a lowly, unqualified researcher – were placed in an impossible situation:, one by virtue of being an animal whose needs are subservient to those of humans; and the other by being a woman in the early 1960s when women were subordinate to men.
This is likely to be the only time you will ever attend a show that features verbatim contributions from a dolphin. Tank’s verbatim element is important, because all verbatim theatre raises questions around who owns and tells a story, how it is edited and how it is received. At one point, there is an attempt to present what we are seeing as a love story, a reminder that all stories can be manipulated.
Tank may be about colonisation but it wears such themes with a light touch in a cleverly pitched, often comic, multi-layered show. Video, sound and movement are all employed to dissect what happens when we justify what we do to others in the interests of science, society and maintaining power.
- At Pleasance Dome until 20 August. Box office: 0131-226 0000
