Review: Book of Dew, EdFringe

Zoo Playground

The Edinburgh Fringe is just the place to go to get away from the everyday world; to immerse yourself in the joy and beauty of the theatrical, and Book of Dew by Sid Zhang and Connor Lifson provides exactly the opportunity to do that in a totally unique performance.

Within a small studio room at Zoo Playground, hidden behind a multiplicity of tiny doors, a tale is waiting to be revealed. It invites the audience to consider a world of natural interconnectivity and beauty through immersion in fragmented storytelling and abstracted moments of physical beauty.

Spider loves the Dew and wants to keep its beauty for herself. She spins a web in the cosmos to trap it so it can never go down and the dawn will never break. The Dew, however, only wants to feel the warmth of the sun and tries to persuade spider to let the moon go free. Through the performance we follow a visually poetic path of negotiation and final resolution.

This is an exquisite capsule production that creates a feeling of contemporary folklore through a non-linear experience. The tale is related in a voiceover (Anna Zheng), whilst the two performers are hidden from sight. Only their hands emerge through the small doors, each time revealing snapshot moments of beauty in movement, light and colour. At times their hands attain independent focus and purpose, like a puppet and reminiscent of the spider, exploring and delighting in the world disclosed. Sometimes smoke spills out or fabric swirls through water, suggestive of the potential of life in our natural world. Colour and movement blend in a visually alluring selection of clips. Occasionally, the shadows of the performers creep upwards beyond the wall of doors, suggestive of a larger space of being beyond that of the story: human presence and influence is tangible yet secreted.

Sebastian Blue Hochman’s beautiful musical soundtrack supports a sense of the fantastical, creating a captivating atmosphere that enhances the meditative nature of the changing visual landscape before us and gives effective continuity to the fragmented clips.

And the story itself is highly timely, with a suggestion of the importance of taking personal responsibility for environmental protection over selfish wants.

Book of Dew is a really unusual but satisfying choice this Edinburgh Fringe. It is a delightful opportunity to immerse yourself in a spiderweb of natural elements and to contemplate our world through fantastical visual and aural beauty.

Produced by Tide and Foam
Created and performed by Sid Zhang and Connor Lifson
Technical Director: Daniel Cadigman
Composer and Sound Designer: Sebastian Blue Hochman
Voiceover: Anna Zheng

Book of Dew plays at Zoo Playground for EdFringe until 25 August. Further information and tickets available here.