Glasgow Times

ZOOM TIME FOR CITY THEATRE

- BY HAMISH MORRISON

LOCKDOWN has closed theatres across the country for nearly a year now. Despite a new roadmap showing us roughly when we can expect things to start going back to normal, there is no indication when we might see performers live and in person again.

For one Ibrox-based theatre company, however, this has only allowed it to innovate the ancient format.

New plays produced by the Tablespoon Theatre company to be showcased at its Potluck 2021 festival will see performanc­e collide with the screens at which we have spent much of the past 11 months.

Dear Dead Jason creates the macabre spectacle of a young woman coming to terms with her partner’s suicide in the form of a vlog.

It is a black comedy, which Tablespoon promises will explore young widowhood and the “dangers of toxic positivity”.

This, while taking an unusual format, is more in-keeping with our convention­al ideas of performanc­e.

Arcade Gym and Small Time Payback both take this more familiar path.

Others on the programme take a much more radical route.

One production, Casa Etera, recreates that troubling feeling of meeting someone you cannot remember, by literally forcing the viewer into face-to-face contact with the performer over a live Zoom chat.

They play out the piece over the video conferenci­ng chat so familiar to us now, in a one-onone session with the viewer.

In an even more pronounced departure from theatrical convention, two of the plays are not even plays at all but websites. The audience explores the stories of Medusa-Vitiare and SelfPortra­it – which both examine ideas and the social pressures of body image and identity – by navigating the website, or digital installati­on created by the performer.

It is the second outing of the Potluck festival for the women who make up the company and who have put on a number of shows since its inception in 2018.

It was formed by Jessica Paris, Alice Nottage, Gioia De Martino and Ellie James.

Potluck 2021 will run from March 26-28 and tickets are a suggested donation of £2.

You can buy them and find out more about the Glasgow theatre company on its website: tablespoon­theatre.com

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 ??  ?? Jen Moss in Dear Dead Jason
Jen Moss in Dear Dead Jason

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