Oran Mor, Glasgow
Oct 21 – 26, 2019

Script:  Stagecraft:
Performance: S.O.D.: 

As part of its 500th play celebration, Oran Mor is this week reprising Dave Anderson’s play “A Walk in the Park”, starring the said Mr Anderson as an everyman character struggling hilariously with his i-Pad and with modern technology in general. He wanted to write a letter and reflect upon tech literature versus the now old fashioned method of using paper.

Taking a walk in the park to think things through, things took on a somewhat surreal tone when he encountered, among other things, a fox and a squirrel (played by Helen McAlpine) along the way. The fox appeared, as bright and orange as the real thing with a small mask of brow and snout. It danced about but went on to join him in his complaints about the real world that we live in today. The fox for him was like a bright apparition which whom he gleefully shared some poetic lyricisms.

The squirrel too gave him an opportunity to think out exactly what was disturbing him, and in doing so, he also managed to create an unexpected bond that gradually begins to do him the world of good. Thus ensued lively conversations between all three characters, both with themselves and between themselves and often directly with the audience. Audience participation being very much part of it all as the three strolled and postured around the stage and up the aisle, to musical accompaniment (piano and song), pondering what they thought of as the horrors of technology.

We were often in tears of laughter with every punchline that came from the actor’s mouth, with his sharp looks and pointed stances. The inclusion of the animals seemed to widen the sense of philosophical exploration, somehow making the smallish room seem bigger as they concluded that they were overawed by the simple statistics of technology as we have come to know it and that being modern might mean that that old traditions may no longer be of any use. It was a message made gently, engaging us completely. When the line “life is not a walk in the park” was uttered, we saw how simple things were really. We were left with a feeling that the questions still remain but we were not alone as we explore them because we all share the same conundrums.

Daniel Donnelly