The boldest, bravest and strangest show that Ell Potter and Mary Higgins have ever made may also be their last. Where their previous productions have been moving, joyous, even revelatory explorations of bodies and the way we inhabit them, The Last Show Before We Die feels born of something wilder.
Ell and Mary live together, work together, and used to sleep together. Now they are figuring out if it’s time for their complicated, overly intense relationship to come to a close. Made with cocky confidence and total abandon, this is a sweaty, heady, gut-wrench of a show about endings and what we gain from each other, even when we have to say goodbye.
Rarely can verbatim interviews have been used with such blazing audacity. While the duo built their previous shows Hotter and Fitter from firsthand interviews and lip-synced scenes, here their use of other people’s stories has evolved into something wiser and weirder. With direction by Sammy Glover and movement by Ted Rogers, they run free with strangers’ stories of what they have lost. Voices turn into percussion. Emotions translate into dance. The world tilts on its axis.
For a show about endings and death, The Last Show Before We Die is vividly, viscerally alive. Totally naked except for holey, translucent tights, Ell and Mary play slippery zombie-fish flapping on the confetti-covered floor at the end of the world. Their monologues are spoken over each other because they’ve already heard everything the other could possibly have to say. They are bodies clasped together, not yet ready to untangle themselves and stand apart.
This sticky, panting duo read what could be marriage vows or eulogies. “The idea that one day we’ll have to catch up like normal people breaks my heart,” Mary says with the sincerity of religious devotion. This is the gravity every true partnership deserves. As they say goodbye, the weight of their love cracks the space in two.
At Roundabout @ Summerhall, Edinburgh, until 27 August
