Edinburgh Fringe theatre review: Fuselage – 'one of the most moving stories you’ll see this Fringe'
A touching and deeply personal reflection on the Lockerbie disaster of 1988 by Seattle-based theatre-maker Annie Lareau is delicate and powerful
Fuselage ★★★★
Pleasance Courtyard Venue 33 Until 25 August
Sometimes, the smallest detail changes everything, and never has this been more true than for Seattle-based theatre-maker Annie Lareau who did not catch Pan Am flight 103 on 21 December 1988 because she couldn’t afford the £75 transfer fee. Instead, her friends - theatre students from Syracuse University who had just enjoyed a term abroad in London - boarded it without her.
Of course, we know what happened next. Lareau, still in her London apartment waiting for her own flight two days later, could only watch in horror as the TV news described the bomb which ripped the plane apart killing everyone on board and showering fuselage and bodies down on the Scottish town of Lockerbie.
The play is performed by Lareau, playing herself, and two other actors, Peter Dylan O’Connor and Brenda Joyner, on a simply but effective set of tumbling chairs. It focuses on the friendship between Lareau and fellow student Theodora (Theo) Cohen, who died on flight 103, and on Lareau’s journey to Lockerbie many years later to meet some of those who helped with the emergency operation.
It is packed with detail, occasionally, perhaps, too much. Even as we meet the Syracuse students and feel their zest for life, a film sequence details the events which led to the planting of the bomb, and the shortcomings which meant it was not intercepted. After the disaster, we see Lareau swamped by grief while trying to deal with the fact that she had become international news.
But the heart of the play is in the way it evokes the moments in which a group of hopeful, talented young people embrace all life has to offer, moments which are thrown into stark relief by what happens next. This is handled so delicately, and with such courage, it makes Fuselage one of the most moving stories you’ll see this Fringe.
SUSAN MANSFIELD
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