Two is the Beginning of the End[author-post-rating] (2/5 stars)

In a palatable mixture of J.M Barrie and autobiographical material, Fishbowl Theatre offers up a unique deliberation on growing up and ‘getting real’… whatever that means. My days of being down with the kids are somehow already long gone, and perhaps that’s why I found it difficult to connect with this frantic, often floundering piece of work, which combines the raw aesthetics of performance art with the testimonial-style text of verbatim theatre to make something that is, unfortunately, not as profound as it wants to be.

Two is the Beginning of the End may not work, but it’s not for lack of trying. Fishbowl Theatre is a particularly young company and as such, it is interesting and promising that it’s motivated to tell its stories in such an abstracted and ambitious manner. One girl can’t speak to the others. It’s only when she ingests pages from Peter Pan (yes, she really eats them… as I said, it’s interesting) that she can offer guiding quotes into the microphone; in fact, it’s her sweet, anxious delivery of Barrie’s words that actually injects a kind of quiet hopefulness into the proceedings.

Other moments of promise do emerge amongst the odd shambolics – there’s an enjoyably sarcastic demonstration of a teenage lovers’ guide, where two performers who admit to consciously seeking a relationship are matched up, set to a sultry soundtrack of Marvin Gaye and R. Kelly. The young man draws a six-pack onto himself with marker pen, whilst the girl stuffs her bra with balled-up Page Three tear-outs. The smiling, sarcastic narrators tell us that young people today are very lucky, because they’ve been helpfully informed of exactly what it is they have to be – simply bombarded with that information, all the time, from every possible angle.

There are also times when it just doesn’t feel right: in particular, one participant ends up on the edge of very real tears as she shares distressing details of her family life. This is an admission that feels strangely exploitative rather than cathartic, an exposure we don’t really feel like we deserve because we haven’t got to know these young people, we’ve just experienced one-dimensional personas who happen to share their names. The cyclical nature of the show – it opens and ends with an odd party, which seems like the worst party ever – in which the participants stand apart from each other, disconnected and disinterested, doesn’t offer a very redemptive picture of either adolescence or adulthood . “Let’s just live for the moment!” cries the the most charismatic of the performers, handing out shots of spirit, which seems to act as the final word on the matter. “Yeah, just do whatever you want,” doesn’t really seem like the best advice for directionless young people, but maybe I’m just old and jaded. Still, I remain intrigued by the degree of playfulness exhibited in Two is the Beginning of the End when it comes to form, if not content. There’s something like groundwork here, so surely the only way is up for Fishbowl Theatre.

Two is the Beginning of the End is playing at Sweet Grassmarket as part of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival until 25 August. For more information and tickets, please see the Edinburgh Fringe Website.