Yuri is exactly what you come to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival to see: surreal, questioning and brilliantly produced. Located in the sprawling Underbelly, Cowgate, Fabrice Melquiot’s farce looks right at home in the dark, but immediate, Big Belly venue. August 012’s original production was a longer, more extravagant, affair. Here, in Edinburgh, director Mathilde Lopez’s pairing down has worked brilliantly. The fourth wall is not just broken but bashed straight through, from beginning to end. Screams at Siwan the stage manager, ad hoc props and audience interaction all help to envelop you in a world where the baffling, but strangely believable, plot of Yuri unfolds.
Adele is a desperate mother-in-waiting. She fervently introduces the play and discloses her recent revelation that drama can represent life: real but not true. Or was that true but not real? It is a brilliant set-up that gives the actor Carys Eleri time to win some sympathy with the audience and reveal that her “Mother-tongue” is Welsh. The bilingualism has been reduced for the Fringe audience. The odd phrase here and there in Daf James’ adapted script is just enough to add another layer to the otherworldly Cardiff setting.
Sympathy for Adele’s childless predicament is, however, soon lost. Patrick, her long-suffering, but equally erratic husband, has to deal with a surprise new addition to the family. In spite of his low sperm-count Adele has managed to procure a child. Initially, Patrick mirrors the audience reaction to this seemingly illegal and ethically invalid conception. Then Ceri Murphy’s roller coaster performance takes Patrick through the twisting emotions of a wannabe father, usurped alpha male, dedicated husband and eventually, cuckold.
The action is so frenetic it is near-impossible to keep your moral compass in check. Should you laugh or look away at such dangerous leaps of faith? Split second decisions are made in heightened emotional states. Reality and unreality lead to the ultimate question: Who is Yuri?
Luckily, the young Guto Wynne Davies’ mature performance as the eponymous Yuri gives the play just enough moments in which to breath. Yuri is presented as the child they have always wanted but Davies captures the insidious alongside the infantile. There is something of the changeling about his character, but instinct cannot help bring concern for a boy in the care of such lunatic ‘parents’.
Branwen Munn’s excellent original score adds a faery tale foreboding to the moments of familial bliss. National anthems sit alongside game show pastiche. In equal parts the music roots the play in a real world full of countries and borders while simultaneously blurring the lines in the destructive lands of desrire.
Yuri is a play hinged on one question that opens the door to a moral maze. You may not find a straight route out when you leave The Underbelly but, like all good theatre, your mind will have been taken along many different twists and turns.
words JOHN-PAUL DAVIES