Review: A Vacuum at the Centre, Paradise in the Vault

Elisabeth Vaughan’s A Vacuum at the Centre is a mixed affair. At times you feel that it’s so close to saying something important, and just as you’re ready to hear it, it does something absurd and the moment is lost. It is a show of missed opportunities throughout.

The opening moments, as Alan and Jack sit back-to-back reciting lines filled with heavy meaning, work perfectly, mainly because the pair are also sitting there in full cartoon character suits; Jack is a canary, Alan a dog/miner. The two are characters from a successful franchise created by Bill Crisp, a man whose cryogenic head is about to be reanimated, ready to sign off on the new film. The company is so successful now that it has spawned a theme park and films from those original cartoon strips. The company’s tagline is “From Heart to Screen”, but it seems the heart has been lost along the way, swallowed by leaders whose eyes are on the money, willing to sacrifice anything, and anyone, to get there.

But that poignant opening scene is soon lost as the show descends into farce that is just not defined enough, either in writing nor performance. In the politest possible way, it at times feels very much the student production it is, as cast members all start to scream and shout over one another, as if being loud and wild is all that is required to fulfil the brief to be farcical. It’s the director’s role to rein it in, to bring control to the madness and ensure that the audience knows where to focus and is able to hear what is being said. All too often, that does not happen here.  

Theme-wise, there are similar problems. At times you sense the ideas are about to spring free; gentrification, legacy, being authentic and staying true to yourself and your beliefs – all are there, but get swallowed up all too often as once more it descends into chaos. 

It’s not entirely bad though. Interesting ideas are there, and presenting them in an absurdist fashion is more than possible. There’s certainly plenty of fun to be had with the whole cartoon theming; Jack’s growling stomach noises are already well considered, but there’s room to go even further with those, along with plenty of other cartoon sound effects that appear here and there.

A Vacuum at the Centre is currently too disorganised to be a success. Absurdist comedies need more control than this one has; they are not all about rushing around in frantic fashion, needing a calm centre to work around. It’s all about finding that centre and knowing how to build upon it. 

Written by Elisabeth Vaughan
Produced by UMDS

A Vacuum at the Centre has completed its run at Paradise at The Vaults as part of the Edinburgh Festival