Greenside @ Infirmary Street
Aug 8th – 12th, 14th – 19th, 21st – 26th

Parce Sepulto

‘Abbey’s Box’ by one Abbey Glover is a show at the Fringe that covers many topics but struck me as being a play about requited love. She sat on a stool in the room (Greenside @ Infirmary street) with a great smile and a deep look of such love in her eyes, that also held a friendly stare as her audience filled the vacuum.

There was a very spacious attention and attitude there before we had even sat down. As soon as she spoke we heard a clear and ringing American accent, honouring the Fringe’s International appeal. It was just her though through a few delectable dialogues she plucked a long cardboard box as if from the audience.

She climbed in and out of this box to frequent stage timings. She used simple props to bring a illusionary side to proceedings and her first trick was to stand on the stool and appear giant like, but this was the introduction to her man crush (I can’t live without you) Daniel that she discussed in reverence.

A powerful intimacy was ever present, with the small room seeming to fit perfectly in its high ceiling and square proportions. Her costume was brown dungarees with a little label that stated liberty, I should have guessed why she included that little detail but it only dawned on me later on. Our sense of her solitude (at least on stage) had a great driving momentum of sensation as her story of dialogue poured forth and gathered itself, I was mesmerised in its metric delivery and good form.

Even as she stepped inside her box we saw her shrink in form and use it to shield certain portions of life difficult to manage she felt hard to comprehend. When she fooled around it was meaningful as she was ever full of promise, she and Daniel partnered up and dealt with the wealth of the world together, he for her and her for him.

But her box she still held in place as a firmament that gave her sacred space even if only as a barrier to be knocked down. It was a play about self knowing and the sheer thunder it can create. Offering an insight or vision into her developmental characters or personalities that dwell within and are called for in the very throes of her existence, and her intimacy was nothing less than that, denoting facts by example, thought by thread and acts by courageous letting loose of the animal or fiend behind or inside her. I took it all in with delight, her quiet moments of total gentleness where receiving her words was a pleasure, and watching her movements and gesticulations as a treasure.

All became more and more intimate, and so happened with a kind of surreal involvement a cementing of bond ship, and friendship between us: her and her audience, cleverly whiling away and unthreading content. Her eyes could stare and did peeking into yours directly and with somewhat discomfort. Most enjoyable, very astute and very sensitive, she grew in size and shrank in size ever focused on this man she loved and ever materialising her very presence on stage, well worth a quite intense hour of classic though modern theatre

Daniel Donnelly