Seen at Edinburgh Festival Fringe on the 8^th of August 2022

5 stars –storytelling of a quest

On stage, everything bears meaning. In the real world, it doesn’t. Humans have a tendency to extend the search for meaning to the hazard and randomness of events, be it to feel in control, or as a defence mechanism. A broader interpretation of this process is enrooted in the heart of Melville’s Moby Dick. In her storytelling show inspired by the novel, Casey Jay Andrews makes this a central point, aware of the further step aback: the quest for meaning bears meaning in itself, for the ‘hero’ who is pursuing it.

This is also valid for Dylan’s quest, arbitrary as it can be, to walk through London for four hours. Meanwhile, a cat is on the hunt for the creature who took away its left hind leg… The characters are inevitably drawn to the water, or to those forms water assumes in a metropolis such as London: the Sea Life aquarium and the Thames.

Casey Jay Andrews’s original piece is wonderfully written. The performance, directed by Steve McCourt, uses miniature animals that it is to each one’s imagination to enlarge and move. The power of the classical story is used to suggest meaning, new and yet unchanged in its foundations. The stories layer and gain a new life, in a world where the perception of a lack of meaning often goes hand in hand with the immersion in the urban landscape.

It is an exquisite pleasure to be guided by Casey Jay Andrews’s voice and follow Dylan’s quest, while she tries to find a way out from a very unlucky situation, from her anxiety and from her own mind. The text has also the quality of universalising her quest for meaning, confronting it, to have a basic example, with the common experience of seeking shapes in clouds. The same way Ishmael, in Melville’s work, looks for significant forms and patterns in Queequeg’s tattoos, and in the White Whale’s scars.

4th – 28th Aug (even days), h. 18.50

Running time: 1 hour

Summerhall, Anatomy Lecture Theatre

Tickets and Info: https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/wild-unfeeling-world

Company Website: https://www.caseyjayandrews.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/caseyjayart/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/caseyjayandrews