Review: Spray

Dark cartoonish fun that hangs on the tale of a dead cat

★★★
theatre review (edinburgh) | Read in About 1 minute
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Spray
Published 10 Aug 2019

This kitsch, kinetic piece of physical performance from South Korea’s Cho-in Theatre Company employs a clever blend of mime, movement and digital projection to conjure up a hyper-real vision of the big bad city in which people are more like pinballs, twanging about between their home and work. 

Our hero, a manager in the ladies shoe section of an uptight department store, is just about holding it together, keeping his clammy hands from coming into contact with his customers. In turn he keeps the cartoonish forces of chaos from kicking over his carefully-established bubble of order.

This doesn’t last long however – a mewing cat seemingly the trigger for a catalogue of increasingly messy incidents that ultimately leads to madness and a bit of light manslaughter.

Eight scene-shifting actors work overtime to bring this vibrant vision to life. It just about works and is often delightful, though sometimes the mix of '60s style animation, commedia dell'arte characterisation and sweaty salaryman paranoia is a bit tiring. It’s cartoonish fun with a dark sadistic side.