Fringe Review: GOOD WITH FACES, TechCube 0 at Summerhall
Photo credit: Supplied by Storytelling PR
Welcomed into the Tech Cube 0, Summerhall, with soaring classical music, an eerie tone is set for Good With Faces. This two-hander thriller is a lesson in tension which escalates throughout the show as the audience are left guessing when nothing is quite as it seems. The plot centres around two people, Anne (Clodagh Mooney Duggan) and Liam (Patrick McBrearty), one is there to check on the other as a social worker, but as power changes hands, things slowly begin to unravel.
Good With Faces, written by Oisín Kearney, is set in a living room - there is a plush velvet sofa, a lamp, a plate full of biscuits. Anne is being filmed for ‘internal purposes’ by Liam, the social worker, who is visiting to check that everything is okay with her son Max and the mysterious bruise on his ear. Unfolding in real time, Liam starts with asking Anne some basic questions and as the mistrust deepens, the lies start to surface.
There is an undercurrent of unease from the very start. McBrearty plays bumbling but understanding Liam who, in turn, divulges his life, and Mooney Duggan plays a wobbly but stern Anne, firm in her line of argument. Together they are formidable onstage as the audience are left hanging in the balance of what will come next. Kearney drags the audience any which way and settles somewhere slightly unexpected every time in this disturbing piece.
An exploration of family and childhood, and the effect that abuse can have on a life are touched upon in this psychological thriller. Sharp acting from both McBrearty and Mooney Duggan allow power and professionalism to be called into question along with simple moral duties. As the performance only gets more unsettling, the question of victim and perpetrator becomes apparent as it becomes evident that there is more at play than initially appeared.
A slow burner, Good With Faces simmers throughout, building up to a shock of an ending that you wont forget anytime soon.
**** Four stars
Reviewed by: Hannah Goldswain
Good With Faces plays at Edinburgh Festival Fringe until 31 Aug, with further info here.